#also add fights are kind of bland and I feel like a proper throw down with Ghil

[midnightwind]

yeah I still hate the story beats around killing Ghilan'nain the second time around lmao this coulda been so mean, but instead it's suuuuper rushed

[whitleyschn33]

RWBY 7 Trailer Thoughts

So, I said I would share my thoughts on the trailer, so here they are! I’m going to start at the beginning and write down what comes to mind for each little section, but since I have seen the entire trailer a couple times now, I may jump forward to connect whatever I’m addressing to something later in the trailer. This might make things seem a bit erratic, so I apologize in advance if this comes out like a lot of rambling nonsense. That said, let’s begin!

1. We open with Ironwood narrating that these are “uncertain times” over a montage of the Kaiju Grimm attack Argus, then cuts to Ruby saying that she’s trying to do what’s best, but doesn’t know if what’s best is what’s right as we see her use her Silver eyes on the Kaiju.

I’m hoping that this line about Ruby not being sure about what’s best being what’s right implies that we’ll get some kind of fallout for the events of Argus. One of my major gripes with the V6 finale is just how dangerous their plan was for the civilians in Argus, and how the narrative so far hasn’t really acknowledged that. The first step of their plan was cutting communications in Argus – something that would have caused mass panic even if they had succeeded and got away without the military noticing in time to send out forces. That panic can and did draw Grimm, and very easily would have killed dozens to hundreds of people. They’re huntsmen and huntresses – even if what’s “best” may be getting the Relic to Atlas, that doesn’t make what they did to do so (putting the civilians of Argus in unnecessary danger) “right”. Anyway, moving on.

2. Next, we get the gang flying into Atlas, whose airspace is completely full of military airships, with Weiss saying that this isn’t right. It then transitions to a shot of Atlas above Mantle, which seems to be on fire, then to the city, then the streets, where we see Atlesian knights patrolling, and only a handful of civilians walking outside, while Blake says the city just seems awful. We see a man throwing a trashcan at a TV screen (which as far as I can tell was showing the “Atlas Broadcasting(?) Network”) while a voice asks “what can we do?” (Can someone tell me who that is? It doesn’t really sound like Oscar or Jaune, and Qrow’s new VA pulls off a much more convincing performance at the end of the trailer, so I don’t think it’s him). Cut to Ruby saying that they didn’t come this far to fail now.

So, from Weiss’s line, we know that this is not how things usually are. The military is on high alert, showing off how strong their defenses are to match the closed off borders. I would guess that this also means troops roaming the city on patrol isn’t how things used to be either. Now, from what I’ve seen, most people seem to be taking this as a sign of martial law, and that theory certainly seems likely – the man throwing the trashcan and the fires we see are all potential signs of rioting, which could be a cause and/or effect of martial law being enacted. I have to wonder if that’s only part of the story, though. Later in the trailer, we see the gang fighting Grimm on the city streets (so I assume that’s what Ruby’s line is directed at), which we know from the leaked storyboards and their clothes happens immediately after they enter Atlas. The only time we’ve seen Grimm inside kingdom walls is during the Fall, so why are they there? What if this is a recent occurrence – a sudden influx of Grimm making it past the defenses and into the city proper? That’s another explanation (or even just another reason in addition to rioting) for troops to be patrolling, and I could very easily see that becoming a vicious cycle. Grimm get in, people panic, drawing more Grimm to the area and making it more likely for them to get it, causing more attacks and more panic, and making the soldiers seem less like protectors and more like ineffective “peacekeepers”. There’s a lot more I could say about this, but let’s keep going.

3. We go back to Ironwood’s voice overlaying what seem to be two/three different fights – the fight in the city streets against the sabertooth Grimm and two different fights in a mineshaft (and yes, they’re mines, the warning signs on the walls warn of deep mineshafts) against a new type of Grimm that I’ve heard are called Centinels and later an Ice Geist. He says, “Until now, I believed it was impossible to truly turn the tides against Salem. We find ourselves in the position of needing…. A new approach. She will keep returning stronger and stronger –“ cut to the new model for Ironwood “- unless we destroy her.” Cut to Ruby saying “Tell us how we can help.”

So, the main thing of interest to me here is Ironwood. We can see from the shot of his new appearance that he’s no longer taking care of his appearance like he did in the first few volumes – the stubble from V4 has become a full grown beard, and his hair doesn’t look like it’s been combed in weeks. The guilt and paranoia that we saw budding in V4 has fully come into bloom, as evident by his lines here, the heightened defenses we saw around Atlas, and the troops patrolling the city. In V4 E11, Jacques accuses Ironwood of never trusting anyone but himself, to which Ironwood responds to “For good reason,” then immediately says, “If Oz had just listened to me from the start…” Ironwood clearly believes that the Fall of Beacon would not have happened had Oz listened to him – used his strategies. Oz’s strategies “failed”, so this reaffirmed Ironwood in thinking that he’d had the right ideas – that if he had been able to control what was happening in Beacon, he could have stopped it. So, now, he’s not taking any risks with Atlas. He’s doing everything he thinks is right to protect the kingdom, no matter how paranoid or insane it seems – closing the borders, dust embargos, potential martial law, whatever it takes to keep the kingdom “safe”. 

Now, this seems to be extending to Salem herself. If Oz was flawed about Beacon, he may be reasoning, why can’t he be wrong about Salem? Maybe there is a way – maybe the strength of Atlas *can* destroy Salem. Salem always seems to come back, maybe she’s just never been completely destroyed, and that’s what we need to try to do to fully get rid of her. Now, we know that this isn’t true, that Salem can’t be killed, can’t be destroyed, but even if Ironwood knows this (from his “believed it was impossible to turn the tides” line), he’s clearly no longer thinking straight. He no longer trusts Oz for having reasons for not simply going after her with an army, since Oz has been knocked down from his pedestal of “all-wise and powerful” with his “death”, so now he’s going to try to go about things his own way… which, from the state of Mantle? Doesn’t seem to be working amazingly well. More on that when I try to summarize my thoughts into a cohesive TLDR.

4. Cue Team RWBY jumping out of a plane into some kind of complex (my guess would be the mines/refineries at the mine site), interspersed with them fighting either the Sabertooths or the Cenitals, and title card.

So, “final” (I say that, but I’ll probably talk about them again) take on the new outfits. Ruby is still my favorite – it still looks really good, the hair is far tamer than I or anyone else thought it would be and I’m glad (though in some places, particularly the concept art that went around like a week ago, it really looks like Cinder, and I’m not sure how to feel about that), since this just gives her hair a more stylized look.

Blake is sitting at my second favorite – I think it’s a look that comes together pretty well, and the hair looks fine (I’ve seen some people complaining about how flat it looks, and I’m just here like, yeah, that happens a lot when you cut it that short, it can lose the volume it used to have). 

Now Weiss and Yang… are now kinda tied. Yang’s outfit looks better than it did in the original art for me, and I think that’s mainly because the belt breaks up the khaki a bit better in 3D, so it’s not just a great expanse of bleh (still think the jumpsuit itself is ugly as hell, but I’ll take what I can get). 

Weiss’s… is still a case where I like the aesthetic they were going for, but it doesn’t come together right. The big poofy skirt looks okay when she’s on her own (sometimes), but next to the rest of RWBY just looks so out of place and in the way and honestly a bit bland. The top half with the sleeves and gloves look… fine, but again, I wish they didn’t poof out the arms so much. The braid… still gives me really mixed feelings because it’s shorter than the concept art, but it’s still looks so thick and heavy, and adds to this unbalanced feeling I get. If it was in the back completely, instead of the side, I would be perfectly fine with it, but as it is, just throws me off. I can see what they were going for, particularly in the clip where she’s fighting a Cenital since that’s where the outfit as a whole looks best to me, but as a whole, there are too many little details that throw me off for me to really like it. Again, that might change when the first episode hits, but for now… eh. 

The title card is pretty, though.

5. Back in the city streets – Qrow comments that he was expecting things to go a lot rougher, Blake and Yang are walking away when suddenly – captured by bolos! We see Blake, Qrow, then Ruby go down, the Relic falling off on to the pavement. A man approaches, while another standing of to the side, and then picks up the Relic. End trailer.

So, first off, major kudos to the new Qrow VA – his performance is outstanding. I was worried that the transition would be jarring, but if I hadn’t known they’d put someone new in, I honestly wouldn’t have noticed. His mimicry of Qrow’s voice is exceptional.

Second, I’m fairly certain that the people that captured the team are Atlas personnel. While we can’t see much, the man in frame wears white and blue, Atlas colors, and has a fairly militaristic haircut. The other figure is either wearing white boots, has a model that hasn’t been completely rendered yet, or seems to be an android, looking at the odd pattern and shape of his feet. I’ve seen some people throwing out the idea that this is Ironwood trying to take the Relic, or Atlas trying to steal the Relic, since the man picks it up, but – guys. Really? We see Ruby talking to Ironwood earlier in this trailer. They’re still in their old clothes, this is episode one. The more likely explanation is that these guys captured them because RWBY and Co attacked a military base, stole an airship, arrived in said stolen airship, and clearly are not supposed to be here if they just suddenly appeared without the border officials being informed, and so are clearly criminals in the eyes of Atlas. So, yeah, my 5 lien are on them spending, like, 5 minutes in jail before they can get to Ironwood, where he (hopefully) reams them out a bit.

So, yeah, that’s the trailer!  No sign of Whitley, which, disappointed by not surprised. I’m gonna hold out hope for him to be in the intro, like in Volume 4. As for what I think may be happening this volume from the trailers, I expect we’ll have a heavy focus on Ironwood, his paranoia, and his relationship with Oz, and how that extends to how the inner circle has operated for the part 10/20/?? years. I also feel like the first big thing to be tackled will be the Grimm in the city. The fact that Grimm are getting in points to a huge breakdown in the kingdom’s defenses, despite the fact Ironwood seems to have ramped them up to 11. So, the question is, where are they coming from, and how are they getting in? Considering that the Centinals break out from the ground, and RWBY and Co are fighting in a mineshaft, I would say that it’s coming from a subterranean pocket of Grimm, like the ones that people of Mountain Glenn broke in on. Since we know Salem is experimenting more with Grimm, it’s possible that this Grimm outbreak is being caused by her seeing how viable it would be to launch an attack on Atlas from underground, where their defenses are at their weakest, and this is showing most prominently in the mines and the city around them/on the ground. Otherwise, it could be possible the SDC, while mining, broke into a cavern full of them. This doesn’t seem as likely, though, with the dust embargo. If the SDC isn’t able to sell overseas, then mining operations were most likely shut down temporarily. No use wasting money trying to get product that you can’t sell. It could be an old mine, though – one that had been boarded up cause Grimm, but that broke loose due to all the negativity caused by Ironwood’s new measures.

But ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see! Once again, I’m sorry if this is a bit rambling – I have to leave any minute now, so I haven’t given this a through reread, but I want to get my thoughts out there in a timely manner for once, so I’m going to post anyway. Thank you for reading this far! What’re your thoughts on the trailer, the outfits, the potential plot? Feel free to comment below or send an ask, and I’ll talk to you all soon! Have a good day!

[loreweaver-universe]

Y’know, today I feel like talking about Disgaea, specifically my problems with Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance.

Spoilers for Disgaea 1, 2, 5, and Makai Kingdom, I guess.

So, first off, let’s talk about...

The Narrative.

Disgaea 5 tells the tale of edgelord Squall Leonhart wannabe Killia, a former asshole who got redeemed by falling in love with the daughter of the only demon to ever give him a proper ass-thrashing, who spent his time teaching Killia how to find inner peace blah blah blah it’s actually pretty bland.  Killia speaks in a constant monotone, half-heartedly tries to get his rapidly accumulating party of Overlord-level demon pals to leave him the hell alone, and is generally just really goddamn boring.  It’s not to say this kind of character can’t be interesting--in fact, I name-dropped Squall earlier, and until Final Fantasy VIII went completely off the rails in the second disc he was a legitimately nuanced character and I was interested in seeing where he went.  Here’s the problem with all that, though:

The Disgaea series is a parody.

Now, full disclaimer--I’ve only played Disgaea 1, 2, 5, and Makai Kingdom.  I have Disgaea 3 and 4, but I haven’t been able to secure a PS3 to play them on yet, so I’m leaving those out of the discussion (though from what I’m aware those are parodies as well.)  However, of the four games I have played, Disgaea 5 stands out as being the only one of them to really take itself seriously.

Well, 2 did as well to a certain extent, but other than the looming issue of “we’re trying to off your evil dad, Rozalin,” Disgaea 2 takes itself about as seriously as Disgaea 1 did, and Disgaea 1 is a farce.

A beautiful, glorious, hilarious, one hundred percent intentional farce.

Laharl is a ridiculous creature.  He’s petty, narcissistic, and childish, and while there are serious story beats (Etna being blackmailed, that asshole Angel stealing Flonne’s protective pendant, etc) Laharl never stops mocking his foes, his friends, and the genre itself.  Disgaea 1, in short, is taking the piss, parodying the most ridiculous parts of anime and JRPGs (and, hell, American raygun gothic) with delightful glee...which is why, when things turn deadly fucking serious in the final chapter, it’s so goddamn heart-wrenching and effective.  That slow burn of Laharl growing to care about Flonne enough that he tears the Heavenly Host several new assholes to try to save her from their judgment (and, even in the best ending, has to talk himself down from murdering the head angel in cold blood because she wouldn’t have wanted him to take revenge for her sake) is one of the most effective tonal twists in the history of media, in my opinion: all of a sudden, it’s not funny anymore.

While Disgaea 1 lampooned the genre as a whole, Disgaea 2 takes a different tack, and lampoons common anime/JRPG character archetypes.  The hot-blooded, idiotically honorable melee fighter; the spoiled rich brat of a princess; the annoyingly perverted goblin of a third wheel (and, ugh, I wish that archetype would die already), the plucky little kids who are the least innocent characters in the whole crew other than the aforementioned perv goblin, on and on and on.  The goal may be serious, but the characters are almost as silly as they were in Disgaea 1, and I actually think 2 manages an even better balance of humor and compelling storytelling than 1, because not only is the romance between Adell and Rozalin natural, enjoyable, and endearing, the dramatic beats come along without undermining the sheer silliness of our protagonists until it can have the most impact.  There’s a moment in one of the later chapters where Laharl from the first game appears without warning, pissed off, heavily geared, and more than a thousand levels your superior.

(Yes, I said a THOUSAND levels.  For those of you in the audience who aren’t familiar with the series, the level cap is 9999, and you can reset a character to level 1, storing attained levels for bonus stats.  I’ll be talking about the grind later, don’t you worry.)

The encounter with Laharl accomplishes several things over the course of the two fights with him: it delivers a joyful reunion with the protagonist of the first game, which turns to terror when you see his stats, which turns to horror as you send your team into the meat grinder to die helplessly...and then it shows us that something is frighteningly wrong with Rozalin as she is seemingly possessed and tears this impossible foe apart effortlessly.  From there the story really kicks into high gear, and like Disgaea 1, transitions into a deadly serious final assault on Zenon’s stronghold, but unlike Disgaea 1 it’s not a shocking swerve in tone--the story’s been building to this over time, gradually reconstructing the genre it gleefully tore to pieces over the previous game and a half.

Makai Kingdom is a very different affair, and can actually be most closely contrasted with Disgaea 5.  In the Disgaeaverse, an “Overlord” is a very powerful demon who rules a pocket dimension called a “Netherworld.”  Laharl’s an Overlord, for example.  Makai Kingdom deals with a set of protagonists on a whole other level of power; these are the Overlords that other Overlords view as gods, and they essentially sit around on their asses playing card games and throwing popcorn at their TV.

I think you can see where I’m going with this.

Makai Kingdom is a return to Disgaea 1′s attitude--relentless silliness, mockery of itself, with a sharp turn at the end.  Whether it accomplishes this goal as well as Disgaea 1 isn’t all that relevant, but it is something we can compare to Disgaea 5.

Disgaea 5 starts off similarly--hideously powerful Overlord-level demons gather together, but the characters are...not exactly dour, but played straight, I guess.  There’s no parody, no lampooning; it’s very stock JRPG comedy (and “comedy”), with dramatic tension, a serious approach to its story and antagonists, and predictable story beats obvious to anyone who’s ever seen a mediocre anime or played a mediocre JRPG.  Hell, the main villain’s name is Void Dark, and not a single character makes fun of that!  There are some interesting designs, and I actually think Majorita is a compelling villain for Usalia, who I likewise enjoy immensely, but the story abandons almost everything that made the previous games’ plots entertaining.  Topple an empire, murder some baddies, get your homes back, save your dead love from the creepy brother with the incestuous undertones.  That’s it.  That’s all.  As a story structure, it works just fine, and as evidenced by my love for the rest of the series I absolutely think challenging established conventions is a good thing, but it doesn’t do so successfully enough that it stands out as a worthy entry in the series.  Where it does shine is in improvements to gameplay quality-of-life and beautiful animation, which brings me to...

The Gameplay.

Disgaea 5 improves the UI, adds all sorts of neat little quirks to character customization, and improves game control substantially.  It adds extra ways to gain stat points (like I said before, character levels cap at 9999 and can be stored for stat bonuses--this game also allows you to train stats for stat points via minigames) and is just generally more in-depth than its predecessors...at the cost of being stupidly easy to grind out.

Yes, I think an easier grind is a bad thing.  Let me explain: I have over ten thousand hours in Disgaea 2 alone over the last twelve years.  I picked the first two games up when Disgaea 2 was brand new, and have beaten the game dozens of times in the intervening span.  Most recently, about five years ago, I created a save file on the PSP port of the game, and I spend idle trips or the time I’m falling asleep grinding it out as kind of an idle game.

Literally everything you do in a Disgaea game gets you experience for something.  Weapon mastery, skill exp, character exp, you name it.  Hell, you can run randomized dungeons inside your items to level those up, too.  It’s incredibly satisfying and makes for a constant sense of progression--even if you don’t level up in a fight you’ve still gotten experience points for the skills and weapons you’ve used, making it stronger, more effective, etc.  My personal goal is to, eventually, have one of every character class maxed out on stored levels and every skill and weapon proficiency in the game, which is a deliberately impossible task because it’s just so much fun to chase it forever.

Here’s the other thing: the Disgaea series, due to the ludicrous level cap, is known for its absurdly deep pool of ever-stronger bonus bosses, stretching, yes, all the way up to the level cap.  The hunt for those is likewise extremely satisfying, and takes quite a while, especially since the campaign usually caps out at around levels 70-90.

With all this in mind, imagine my dismay when I realized I was blowing through skill and weapon exp and hitting the caps on everything in a tiny percentage of the time I was expecting.  To be fair, there is a “Cheat Shop” NPC who can adjust the EXP you gain up and down, which is neat, but I have to crank it down to literally single-digit percentages of normal to get the same amount of chase-time out of it.  This is not to say that the game should be inaccessibly grindy; in fact, Disgaea 1 and 2 aren’t.  The story campaigns in those games are perfectly completable with the normal skill progression and a small but admittedly grindy amount of extra leveling in unlocked areas.  It’s all the extreme bonus content that’s gated behind the postgame grind, and the huge ceiling on skill levels and weapon proficiencies means you’re constantly rising in power and challenging new heights.  I think that’s a fantastic reward for being dedicated to the game!  And Disgaea 5 in its default state takes that away.  I had a character capped out on all proficiencies, subclasses, and aptitudes within my first hundred hours of the game.

It was...disappointing, I guess.  All around, mostly; for every step forward it took, it also took a step back.  Ultimately, the story takes a backseat to my points about the grind, because the campaign in any Disgaeaverse game is literally about 2% of the game’s content.  Disgaea 5 took my grind from me, and that’s why I’m salty enough to have just spent an hour typing up a book report on its failings, I guess.

[its-btrz-blog]

The Infernal Devices (by Cassandra Clare) Series Review

This is a trilogy by author Cassandra Clare, set in the Shadowhunters Chronicles' universe, which she created with her first series, The Mortal Instruments. Although they are set in the same world, this is a prequel series and can be read first without spoiling her later books. It has three installments, Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess, which were published between 2010 and 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Margaret K. McElderry.

What made me want to read it:

Some of the characters here made an appearance/were mentioned in TMI and I either liked those characters or was curious about them and wanted to know more. Before that, I'd already been recommended this book in Goodreads and I confess I was always very attracted by the promised setting: steampunk in Victorian London! They also have gorgeous covers.

What is it about (no spoilers):

In London, 19th century, a girl named Tessa Gray finds herself engulfed in the magical underworld. This is unknown territory for her and she's looking for her brother. To get help, she allies herself with the city's Shadowhunters, and soon they will also be uncovering a downworlder conspiracy, aided by strange clockwork creatures, to conquer the Empire.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

Let's start with the setting. The thing is, if you're going to write a book in a different time period, the reader has to feel that they are in fact in a different time. Both the narration (that follows different characters' point of view) and the dialogue read just like a book set in the 21st century. There's some mention of Victorian elements, but it feels more like they are modern teenagers playing dress-up with some occasional references to propriety. The Shadowhunters especially seem hardly affected by the passage of time, as in, they are mostly the same as they will be more than 100 years later.

Then we have the characters. I'll only talk about the main trio since the others are there mostly to fawn over them and have background romances (and occasionally be useful or die). Some of them look like they're more interesting than the main ones, but well. So we have Tessa, our protagonist, and Will and Jem, two Shadowhunters who are also best friends and parabatai (an eternal bond of friendship or whatever it is). They are all teenagers with tragic back stories and they are all gorgeous. They also form a love triangle.

I'll start with Tessa. Tessa loves books. She reads a lot and loves to quote her favorite books and compare herself to their heroines. She's very social inept so she only knows how to act based on what she's read. Aside from that she's basically the most superficial character in the series. She constantly worries about how she looks, about her clothes, about her hair (never mind that she judges another character for being shallow and worrying about class and position and being pretty), about what is proper and what is improper, if a certain character is handsome or not. Please. She's in an unknown place with unknown forces, trying to save her brother and the city and maybe trying not to die. Is this really all that worries her? Also, ignoring what the other characters think about her, I find her to be very childish and insensitive to others. Her involvement in the love triangle is deplorable. The two boys love her, she knows that, and she leads both of them on, and shares clearly romantic and inappropriate (according to her) moments with both, clearly not caring much about who gets hurt. There's even a whole thing with accepting a serious compromise/love declaration from one of them while thinking about the other's hot body all the time. So, yes, I don't find her a character I can like or respect or understand.

After Tessa, there's Will. Will embodies tropes I absolutely hate. He is the handsome, broody sarcastic boy who is actually a jerk with everyone but that you can just tell from the beginning that he will turn out to have a tragic past and good intentions and a heart of gold and everything will be forgiven and forgotten and he will be pitied and loved by everyone. He's also one of those characters who treat their love interests badly. They ignore them are mean to them, then throw themselves at them and kiss them, then tell them to stay away because “I'm so dangerous for you, you don't understand”. Overdone and personally, not something I like.

Then the last person in the love triangle is Jem. Jem is actually the only character from these 3 that I can sort of like. He's kind and he cares about people. He's basically a victim here. All the time I couldn't help but wonder what the hell is saw in Will and Tessa, because he just adores both of them and his world seems to revolve around it.

Moving on to the story. These are 3 books with approximately 500 pages each. That's a lot, and you would expect a lot would happen. Turns out, it doesn't. There's a cat and mouse chase for the bad guy and for Tessa's brother, and they make some plans to find information, and have a couple of fights. When you think about it, these things in themselves don't take up much space. However, it always seems like the story is dragging and things move so slowly. And frankly, that's because this book is more about romance, than it is about anything else. We are constantly told the same things over and over again, as if we couldn't bother to remember from one chapter to the next and a lot of space is dedicated simply to repeat over and over and over again how beautiful a character is (and in Tessa's case, what she's wearing, occasionally). I found this fault in the other Shadowhunters books too, and it is extremely irritating. We constantly get descriptions of the beautiful characters, with eye color and hair color and we are always getting told how beautiful and hot they are! I lost count how many times Tessa says Will looks so fine in his evening clothes. Like, I need a character described to me ONCE. Once is more than enough. If, dear me, I forget how a character looks like, down to the specific shade of his eyes (which leads us to gems like “His eyes were bluer than blue.”), I can go back and read it again. Or maybe not, since that is hardly crucial to understanding a story.

We are again shown how incompetent and not progressive the Clave is and I'm still not sure how this can be a functioning and surviving organization. To top it off, we still get treated with the sickening portrayal of fantastic racism that features in TMI. Downworlders are treated like trash, have no rights, no protection, and still, when they dare revolt against the institution that oppresses them, they are the bad guys and that totally justifies every bad thing they have to suffer. The concept of cause and effect or even historical memory doesn't seem to exist. There could be a great lesson about racism here, but somehow it never gets through. There is never a sympathetic view for the Downworlders, no one ever revolts against this constant system of oppression they keep them in.

So, in the end, we have this mostly superfluous addition to the Shadowhunters Chronicles, who is about 1000 pages too long for the story it is supposed to tell, since it is a fantasy disguised as a romance. Don't be fooled, the love triangle is the main point of the books, the rest is just background. Mostly, I felt that I would've been happier with a simpler version of this story making a chapter of the main series instead of this… whatever it was. I lost respect for the characters and the beauty of their story just disappeared.

Conclusion:

If, like me, you feel the need to finish series, well, go ahead and read it. If you, also like me, were looking for a cool story with steampunk elements in Victorian London, well, sorry, but this is not the right series. That part of the advertisement is basically non existing in the books. If you want a romance with supernatural and historical elements, I guess you could try it, but even as far as romance goes, I don't find this a good example.

I had higher ratings for the first and second book, but in the end and after reflecting I gave one star ratings to the three books, because mostly it felt like a lot of time spent reading for an absent story and a bland attempt at romance.

[My individual short reviews for each book are here, here and here.]

The short stories:

There are two, On the Bridge and After the Bridge, who are available for free on the writer's website. One of them is a sort of prologue, I guess, and the other makes up a sort of epilogue to give a second and alternative happy ending to the story and is basically a sex scene. The second one should be read after the three books otherwise it will spoil them, and other than some wish fulfillment for a couple it adds nothing.

[the-kind-new-yorker-blog]

Girls Beyond the Wasteland, Show That Will Ironically, End Up Into Obscurity Itself Give It A Couple of Months

Creating a Game is do not ever easy. Especially since that the sector for entertainment lately is so good sized, getting your name available on a Game and successful is rather challenging. So, what show tackle this wasteland on the market where just the strong might survive?! KOUYA! A show that can... ironically, end up inside obscurity itself give it two months...

Story: Buntarou has to be your average high higher education boy. Well, not necessarily average, but the user gets the idea. He loves to help people with the problems, works hard to your pint that you know him and contains a good impression with him, and loves to write for that drama club to help them in their own productions. However, one faithful day, a lovely but cold girl by way of the name of Kuroda asks Bunta for a date, assessing him in advance of finally declaring him to remain the writer on the new project with hers; making some sort of galge.

The principal premise of Kouya is usually supposedly to 'make some sort of visual novel Game'. I use the term supposedly because in all seriousness, this show would make no effort to attempt to make that that central focus. The general summary of any offered episode starts using something going mistaken with development and/or Kuroda having a concern with the individuals who are working and pleasing her dream 100 % FREE, the person your lady upsets and/or yells with subsequently leaves, Bunta and all of those other cast spend the vast majority of episode to attempt to get that people back, they get back, rinse and perform repeatedly. And this is kind of honestly the entire runtime in the show. Throw within a few forced dynamics developments, some required story elements (like bullshit romance), and you have precisely what is basically Kouya in short.

The story itself is incredibly stale because the complete series is based mostly around internal conflicts inside group that from time to time make me wonder why that they even bother banding together in the beginning, since many advisors say "I'm leaving but not coming back", before coming back again ready to succeed again, before departing again. It's repetitive not really all that will imaginative. It also holds mention that since show is stuck from this endless loop with arguments, anything else that show tries to undertake end up as well being very cliche, or are so underdeveloped that this doesn't even issue. Have a issue with voice coming across as? Well, with several words of support, she'll 'magically' complete better. Artist aren't able to draw? Well, games console her and she is going to 'magically' do far better. See the trouble here?

The attempt at comedy that show does additionally doesn't do that show really any favors additionally. Most of that comedy bounces from character retorts or higher exaggerated moments that typically aren't really the only thing that clever and/or innovative. Because the exhibit feels so required, they end in place feeling more cringeworthy as compared to anything and As i honestly couldn't even laugh quite often because of that they were presented.

Over-all, Kouya's story was filled with forced character progress, constant arguing, and a few downright laughable attempts to produce itself interesting. Although show piqued my interest in the beginning because it reminded me on the show with a comparable concept called Saekano, there was hardly ever in hell that I might like to compare this little bit of trash to that will show. Plus, the complete last episode is usually one big waste of your energy since they quite simply do nothing at the time of its entire runtime.

Examination: + Interesting account concept - Bad execution - Comprehensive runtime was some sort of boring and from time to time irritating rinse together with repeat setup - Several cliches and unndeeded story elements to advance the story down - Ending episode was a total waste of time period

Characters: Characters are also a giant issue in regards to the series as one since that really nobody stands out as their own personal character.

Rokushara, your little friend Game company this is started by Kuroda, comprises our main protagonist Buntarou, his friends Atomu together with Yuuka who hates normalfags and it is energetic as just about all hell respectively, some sort of fujoshi named Andou which CONSTANTLY fights using Kuroda, and Yuuki (Tori-chan) which despite her small to medium sized and meek dynamics, aspires to be described as a hentai artist. I grouped in the entire main cast from this series all in place into one since quite honestly, that's all they are really. Since all in the character development is usually forced and truly doesn't add much to your characters at just about all, this is essentially what we're departed with. All of them are merely generic Anime cliches ultimately don't have considerably substance to them as one. Tropes aren't poor, and can be achieved tastefully, but in such a case, Kouya focused excessively hard on looking to create proper drama that this forgot to make its very own characters interesting and meant it was even harder to root for your kids since they just about all have terrible people.

Side characters are actually nothing but block devices in Kouya since that the show spends most its time with its main people. Any character that isn't the main Rokuhara group is really only someone used to refill cast space.

Examination: - Generic, underdeveloped principal character - Block device side people

Art: The art work for Kouya is not really anything special. The animation is standard as to the we see regularly today in Anime, and there's truly nothing special in the regard.

Sound: Akin to art, the OST with regard to Kouya really isn't anything to jot down home about. The opening can be a rock song that will while yes, gives you some aspect of memorabilia for it, it's... rather unfitting for any show despite it's translation title being "Girls Beyond the Wasteland trailer", and the ED is quite bland and it can be just this thrilled ditzy song this is completely skippable.

Personalized Enjoyment: At primary, I really imagined that Kouya truly had something choosing it. It was some sort of show about producing visual novels and since a similar exhibit called Saekano has this can be the same premise, together with did rather properly, I thought that this is a reflection of that will, or would be similar in the regard. But week when week all I bought were the people just arguing amongst each other, with only a few snippets of advancement. Hell, they even stated themselves they will were on a good schedule, and the reality that they were having to pay more screentime battling and arguing as compared to actually making that goddamn Game. Top it off of with lackluster everything once we got closer and nearer to the end, and we now have ourselves an ironic fail.

Did I love this particular Anime?

No, virtually no I didn't. As being the weeks progressed, I honestly started out hating the show ever more because of precisely how poor the writing along with the progression actually has been.

What didn't I want about this Anime?

Really, while I could say I hate everything and become done with that will, I want to find yourself in specifics here. Sayuki Kuroda is usually hands down among the list of brutal and inhumane characters i have ever affecting a school linked Anime. She is a sole reason why everyone from this goddamn Anime actually leaves. She is a total tyrant to the individuals who are trying to allow her, and your lady put her blogger on house stop, prohibiting from allowing him you eat, sleep, go to your bathroom, or spend when on anything BUT writing since they were in back of schedule. (This was a genuine episode that occured. It was the smallest amount funny thing May possibly ever seen in Anime although they played it off being a joke. ) Enjoy actually, HOW in any respect are we designed to feel sorry and support a dynamics who does this?

Would I propose this Anime?

Girls Beyond The Wasteland Kouya can be an Anime that needs to be left in that wasteland. Any and all development out of this show is forced and it is only there to feign an awareness of of progress. That show is revolved available constant bickering, spends only a part of its time on any kind of actual Game producing, and to prime it off, has among the list of worst female leads i have ever affecting a school linked Anime. This can be a show that deserves to remain left out inside wasteland and end up forgotten.