#bizarre things that I’m not sure if they are fanservice or are making fun of fanservice or both but I wouldn’t take them out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

illusionsofcontrol · 3 years

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are there any tropes you wanted to stay away from with each character or the setting of danganronpa? its a pertty formulaic thing but you made it probably 10x more interesting than the usual game. maybe its because of the depth in charcters or the stakes but wh just seems more engaing than most real dr games! i love your works btw!

I'm really honored that you feel that way about my story! Thank you!

I should warn that my response is going to be somewhat critical of Danganronpa. I want to clarify that I still enjoy the games and it's perfectly fine if anyone disagrees, but these are my opinions and I feel they are important to my response.

First off, I guess I'm not sure if there's any setting tropes I mind in DR. The settings are actually pretty unique to each game and tie into the murders decently. WH obviously has a different setting, but that's more to fit the story rather than avoiding DR tropes.

There are, however, a lot of character tropes I intentionally avoided in WH:R.

Singular Buff Character Who Dies in Chapter 4

WH:R has two buff characters (formerly named Jerome and Ryan) and without going into spoilers, they may or may not have anything to do with Part 04. I don't know, this trope is just so overdone that I saw Gonta's design and instantly predicted that he'd die in Chapter 4. I thought it had to be a red herring, but no. That indeed happened just as expected. I don't want people to be able to predict deaths just by looking at a character design.

Girls Must Wear Skirts

Fun fact, there are only three female Danganronpa characters who don't wear skirts. They would be Aoi Asahina (wears shorts, much like an athletic swimmer would outside of the pool), Hiroko Hagakure (Yasuhiro's mom, wears jeans), and Ruruka Ando (Confectionary girl from DR3, wears very, very short shorts-). Unless there's someone I'm forgetting, every other DR girl wears skirts. Now, I'm aware that this is because most Japanese school uniforms require girls to wear skirts. But given how... bizarre everyone's outfits already are, do all the girls HAVE to wear skirts??? Given the weird fanservice of the games, I feel like it's more to make the girls reveal more skin/slim figure idk :/

I'm getting carried away here. Anyway, WH:R doesn't take place in a Japanese school so I made sure that the women aren't all wearing skirts. And while we're on the subject...

Sexual Fanservice

I'm not against it, but I personally feel like sexual fanservice in a Murder Mystery game (especially involving teenagers) is really uncomfortable. Every game has certain female characters designated to making fanservice moments (DR1: Aoi, DR2: Akane, Mikan, v3: Miu) (Junko for all three I guess-) (Also yes I'm aware that Mikan's fanservice is part of her character/backstory but it doesn't change the fact that the CGs are there for shameless fanservice. They could've drawn the scenes where her back was to the screen or something and conveyed the same message but they made sure to show Everything.)

There's also plenty of designs that are overly revealing; obviously anyone can wear what they want and a large chest is not inherently sexual but it's pretty clear to me that a lot of the revealing designs are for fanservice. Once again, these are mainly teenagers, and the older I get the more it unsettles me.

Anyway, I really wanted to avoid doing sexual fanservice for WH:R. Even though all characters but one are adults, it's just not something I want to write in a story like this. It's not my style.

The Rat

I mentioned this in a previous post, but I ended up avoiding the Rat Character trope. It's not that I dislike it, but I quite enjoyed having the characters all mean well (except for the Puppetmaster, of course.)

(But if I were to have a rat character in WH:R, they'd be the Super Diamond Level Griefer haha)

Resident Dumbass

Yasuhiro, Kazuichi, Kaito, and Akane come to mind (yeah the middle two aren't actually dumb but they tend to fall into this trope regardless). Having to do an entire minigame just to convince Yasuhiro that Kyoko wasn't a literal ghost comes to mind... Idk, I guess I just feel like characters like Kazuichi and Kaito are actually smarter than that but because it's "funny" they have to say illogical stuff throughout the games? Perhaps in a game with voice acting it can be a funny aside, but in a novel that kind of stuff would just slow everything down.

I don't know, it's not like everyone in WH:R is super smart, but that's a trope I tried to avoid.

Rude Characters (?)

Okay this isn't really a trope but Danganronpa tends to always have abrasive characters, but given that WH:R has a main cast of friends, it wouldn't make much sense for there to be much rudeness. I guess Ryan would be the closest to that but he still genuinely cares about the group.

This isn't a bad trope, it's just more natural to exist in Danganronpa because the characters there start off as strangers.

Conclusion

I can't really think of other tropes at the moment. Maybe if I think of more I'll reblog this. But I want to clarify that most of these "tropes" are avoided because of personal preference and differences in media, not necessarily because they're inherently bad.

This next part isn't exactly answering the ask, but I'm assuming that I get these asks from people who are interested in making their own fangans. So here are my two cents.

I've seen fangans that are made out of love for DR and I've seen fangans made out of spite and dislike for some aspects. Both reasons are valid (mine is mostly the former with a slight hint of the latter that's grown over the years). Kodaka's writing is definitely flawed; however, making fangans purely out of spite is dangerous. I don't want to name names, but there is one fangan in particular where the writer admitted to hating Danganronpa and only focused on adding what they wanted. But they neglected the most important part: having a solid story and cast.

Whether or not you love or hate Danganronpa, if you're writing a fangan, it is important to consider the many subjective reasons people are drawn to/away the series. I'm a firm believer that every story has something to teach a writer; even if the lesson is simply "I really don't like these tropes", considering why is insightful.

It mostly boils down to style, in my opinion. Danganronpa has a much different tone with its wacky characters and dialogue and scenarios, but that's Kodaka's style. My style is more grounded in reality, with each character having their own depth that comes up in the main plot and not just in Free Time Events. This is because my stories are more character-driven, and I personally dislike important character information that is sidelined to bonus content. I'm the kind of writer that never makes an OC that's not part of a story, cuz my style has every character play an important role.

(However, one can argue that in a visual novel, having more character depth in Free Time Events adds greater meaning because the player gets a special insight from choosing to interact with certain characters. In a regular novel, there isn't really that kind of interaction. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the media you're working with is also important.)

I think one of the biggest lessons I learned while writing WH is that forcing yourself to imitate any writer's style when trying to take inspiration is going to fall flat. It's kind of apparent in the beginning of WH, but I used to be feel like I had to follow the Danganronpa style even when I had my own desires for the story.

In reality, every writer is different and has their own quirks that they enjoy but other writers might not. There are many things I dislike about Kodaka's writing, but I know those things are definitely appealing to other people. Likewise, I know my style is not for everyone. It's fine to try and branch out if you want, but one has to recognize what one is comfortable with.

This lesson is still hard for me to absorb sometimes because I don't have much confidence in my storytelling abilities, but I'm gradually accepting that this fangan is my own. I am doing my own spin on the Danganronpa story and that's okay.

And honestly, that's what every fangan should be; a writer's own spin on the Danganronpa plot concept. So while here are the tropes I made sure to avoid, that doesn't mean other writers need to do the same. Figure out what works best for you and what YOU want to see in a Danganronpa story.

(Holy crap this was so long I'm so sorry-)

#ask

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firstpuffin · 4 years

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BBC America’s The Watch characters: what’s been “reimagined” pt 1

Given my unhealthy obsession with the Discworld series and that the books following the City Watch are among my favourite, the upcoming reimagining has been on my mind a lot of late. I can’t wait for January to come along, but until then I have little to do but speculate.

I want to take a look here at the characters of the series, specifically the profiles so conveniently provided by the Den of Geek website and compare them to what we see in the books. This isn’t with a negative bias, insofar as I can unbias myself, but merely a brief comparison.

Let’s do this in the order of main characters:

Samuel Vimes, “Captain of The Watch, disempowered by a broken society that’s reduced his department’s jurisdiction to almost nothing.”

A very bare description but not wholly inaccurate. In the first book- Guards! Guards!- Vimes is disillusioned with his place in the city of Ankh-Morpork, drunken, sloven, all largely thanks to his Night Watch being a joke to the community at large.

But this description isn’t quite right: Ankh-Morpork isn’t a broken society as instead it works. Under the Patrician’s guidance the Night Watch are largely unneeded, at least ostensibly; you don’t need to catch illegal thieves when the legal Thieves Guild will do a much better job of it for you. Vimes is a broken man, but only because he hasn’t found his place yet.

Richard Dormer at least looks the part. I’ve seen official artwork that shows Vimes as neat and proper looking, but in the books he’s always described as “scruffy”. I don’t watch trailers so I haven’t seen him in action yet, but the worst thing I can say is that the decision to not give the Watch armour was a huge loss.

Lady Sybil Ramkin, “last scion of Ankh-Morpork’s nobility, who’s trying to fix the city’s wrongs with her chaotic vigilantism.”

“This is where the fun begins”. But really, where to begin? Why “chaotic vigilante”? Is middle-aged dragon breeder not bad-ass enough? In the later books we don’t see too much of Lady Sybil, but she does start appearing more, and the dramatisation can easily do this much sooner without issue.

What we really wanted from Lady Sybil was a big middle-aged woman, which would be nice representation for that demographic.

There’s not much to say about Lara Rossi in the role except that she doesn’t really look cut out for dragon-breeding.

Carrot (Headbanger) Ironfoundersson, “the idealistic new recruit, raised by dwarfs, but really a human abandoned at birth.”

Not a whole lot to say here. Carrot wasn’t abandoned so much as his family massacred by bandits, but whatever.

Adam Hugill looks big, orange and handsome, and is dressed neat enough to pass muster. I’m looking forward to watching him.

Angua (Delphine) von Überwald, “tasked with Carrot’s training and keeping the rookie alive.”

Well, this is… well it’s the reverse really. The second book, Men at Arms, has the Watch forced to take in minority officers, and being a werewolf Angua is a shoo-in. She is trained by Carrot and serves to show the reader how the people of Ankh-Morpork view Carrot’s bizarre charisma.

Marama Corlette is an interesting choice. Angua is meant to be tall and beautiful, with long blonde hair (treated with products meant for dogs), but whose werewolf side manages to come through in a disconcerting manner.

Marama is portraying her as a short, scruffy character with very short hair. She’s going to lack the disharmony that makes Angua’s beauty so much more than fanservice. Still, probably not her choice and it will be interesting to see how she deals with the werewolf inside.

Cheery Littlebottom, “the ingenious non-binary forensics expert, ostracized by their kin and finding a new home and identity.”

Probably giving Cheery a little bit too much credit here: she’s skilled, yes, but she has to learn forensics when she first appears in the third book, Feet of Clay. She’s not non-binary, quite the opposite, but I’ve already discussed that here, and neither is she ostracized as such. Given that she’s not a unique non-binary individual but just a part of the larger Dwarfish sociological problem, I feel that they’re missing a major opportunity in cultural sexual expectations here.

Going by pictures alone, I’m not even sure Jo Eaton-Kent is even playing a dwarf, but wouldn’t it be better to have an actual dwarf actor play the role? And I guess if they aren’t going to bother with armour then why bother with beards, but once again it drops a whole bunch of the nuance of the source material.

Lord Vetinari, the Patrician, “architect of the city’s normalized wrongness and ramshackle system of governance.”

Oh.

I intended to say that Anna Chancellor had some big, big size twelve shoes to fill after Vetinari was portrayed by Charles Dance, but apparently that’s a non-issue as the Patrician is now fucking incompetent!

I need to calm down. I genuinely need to take a break after reading that. Bye.

#first puffin #Discworld #night watch #ankh morpork #the watch bbc #bbc america #samuel vimes #lady sybil ramkin #carrot ironfoundersson #angua von uberwald #Cheery Littlebottom #lord vetinari #waytoomanytags #thosetagswilldofornow

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bluinary · 4 years

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gag anime that you need to watch maybe

hi hello my name is juli and i will now gently guide ur attention to some top-notch shows, please pay attanetion

(this list is for people who don’t watch much anime or who are new to it. if ur a fucken weeb youve probably seen it all. dont @ me i want to help the kids)

ONE PUNCH MAN (the obvious 1st choice lol)

Genre: Action/ Shounen

Expectation: OP protagonist with riveting backstory fights to become the strongest hero, makes many friends along the way who recognize his talents and pure heart, big bad scary villains make him stronger

Reality: OP protagonist is already the strongest hero. His backstory? After fighting a lobster-man with nipples drawn on him with a Sharpie, Saitama decides to do a workout routine every day, and somehow ends up becoming the most powerful known being in the universe. His main issue is that now, he literally can take down any villain with a single punch, and he’s very bored of it.

Best Qualities: Animation is bomb, music is dope, humor is funnie, and Best Boy is a man whose superpower is riding a bicycle. Also Saitama egg head

If you were in a coma for all of 2015, this is the main thing u missed. Moving on.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls’ Nozaki)

Genre: Romance/ Comedy/ Slice of Life

Expectation: Smol shoujo protag girl grows closer to her oblivious crush through a fated, if awkward, incident which reveals an embarrassing secret that has to be kept at all costs. Through one another they gain more quirky friends, help each other grow, and, eventually, the male lead realizes that what he needs has been beside him all along.

Reality: The crush writes romance manga, and that is literally all the man cares about. It’s not a secret, but when he told people they didn’t believe him. Nozaki and Sakura grow closer, but only because he confuses her confession with a request to be his Beta. They gain quirky friends through one another, but there is zero character development throughout the entire fucking cast. Every episode is run by Idiot Plot. All the characters share a singular brain cell. There’s a tall butch lady turning every girl in the school gay. Please watch

Best Quali-teas: Everyone is baby, lots of gay shenanigans, and toxic masculinity does not exist, the OP is pretty nice, too

I literally heard about this damn show, like, two months ago. This shit was released circa 2015. Pleeze watch

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. / Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan

Genre: Shounen/ Supernatural/ Fucking Everything tbh

Expectation: Slice-of-life supernatural where protag has psychic powers, albeit limited ones, and has to keep them a secret at all costs for fear of his safety. He has a few friends he loves and cherishes, and at least two girls who are in love with him that he has to choose between-- all of which are people he wants to protect from his double-life.

Reality: Kusuo is very aware that he is the protagonist of an anime, and he does not want to be. Born with pink hair? He rewrites the human genome to make colored hair normal. End of the world looming? He just keeps rewinding time so he doesn’t have to deal with it. Harem situation? He actively uses his powers to avoid all love interests at all times (see the above). The plot of each episode is him trying to stop the plot as quickly as possible without killing anyone. The main issue is that everyone around him is either dumb or just generally attractive to plot-driving circumstances, and they all, for some reason, want him to be in on their adventures.

Best Qualities: Heavy “me and the boys” energy, plenty of Idiot Plot, so funny that my 47yo mom who hates anime admitted that it’s funny, meta as fuck, occasionally sweet scenes, equally good dub and sub, Saiki is babie

The fandom for this shit is like. Nonexistent. Apparently it came out the same season as Mob Psycho 100, so that might be why. I almost didn’t watch it, but I got bored and it turned out to be a serious gem. Go watch if ur having a bad day, it will make u cry laughing

Sakamoto Desu Ga/ Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto

Genre: Slice of life/ Comedy

Expectation: God I don’t even know. I’d say a typical slice of life where the quiet kid is bullied but makes friends, there’s a love triangle as they grow up together through high school, yadda yadda, but look at this dude. I can’t imagine him being anything other than what he is-- a legend.

Reality: The entire show is just a question of how extra one man can be, and how well he can pull it off. Sakamoto is an “average” high school senior (in the sense that he has no supernatural abilities), but he’s....far more than that. He’s Sebastian Michaelis if he’d never been a demon. Everything always works out for him in the most ridiculous of ways-- he’s just that good. He makes a McDonald’s uniform look like Prada. He’s so smooth his bully ends up having a crush on him (and yes, it is a gay crush. no heteros in this show).

Best Qualities: lots of homo content. the side characters, inspired by Sakamoto’s grace, all become better people, and you root for them. The circumstances are always average, but the presentation is fucking riveting. Watch to send ur depression into remission.

Another one no one talks about????? U all were so busy with ur broku no hero macadamias and ur Nartoes that you slept on this. Now’s the time to take back what was lost. Love yourself and binge this shit.

Nichijou/ My Ordinary Life

Genre: Slice of Life/ Comedy

Expectation: Cute girls do cute, girly things and have fun with Their Close Good Friends (TM).

Reality: Cute girls get into very bizarre situations with extremely manic energies. Sometimes, the situations are normal, but the girls react in a bizarre, manic fashion. It will make you alarm-laugh.

Best Qualities: Adorable art style, little continuity, relatable as fuck

A nice little watch if you’re bored. I think the eps are on YouTube.

Pop Team Epic/ Poputepepiku

Genre: Only God Knows

Expectation: Probably a cutesy 4koma-type thing with 2 schoolgirls having shenanigans.

Reality: A regular acid trip with lesbian icons Popuko and Pipimi who are not schoolgirls, but gods. Like if Eric Andre and Hannibal Buress were turned into omnipotent anime icons. Watch at your own risk.

Best Qualities: Lots of unexpected parodies and references amongst a shitpost of a show. The OP is a bop. Popuko terrifies me, but also empowers me as a young woman because she will not hesitate to kill a bitch. She and Pipimi love each other a whole lot, so it is LGBTQ content, which is always a plus.

I’m sure you’ve seen this one floating around. It will make you feel fear, and then laugh. Now, finally...

Ouran Highschool Host Club

Genre: Romance/ Comedy

Expectation: The protagonist is a girl who is mistaken for a boy and must be the servant of six rich, handsome young men, all of which are in love with her, and her secret must be kept at all costs. A reverse harem anime with plenty of fanservice.

Reality: Haruhi is a genderfluid queen who doesn’t give a fuck what others think she is. Because she broke a Conveniently-Placed Vase and is relatably poor, she has to pay off her debt by being a host herself-- which means male-presenting when flirting with her female classmates to make her dough. The six rich, handsome young men all share three brain cells, and most of those cells go to the character who has one line per episode (usually, it’s “Yeah”. I hope that VA got paid well). The only love interest-- the “leader” and most popular of the six men-- is so dead-set on their club being his Found Family, he confuses his romantic feelings for Haruhi with paternal ones. This is obvious to everyone but him. He never gets the brain cells.

Best Qualities: Trans characters!! Lesbians!! Extreme “me and the boys” energy, except they’re all rich, so shenanigans skyrocket. Many 4th wall breaks. The most powerful Host looks like he’s 5. Any “fanservice” is never played straight. Takes the Found Family trope to a whole new level. Nice Parks & Rec-quality balance between hysterical and sweet. Everyone is in drag at some point.

I know all of us senior citizens grew up on this shit, but you younguns need to watch the classics to appreciate the newfangled stuff. I recommend watching when you’re in a cheesy rom-com mood.

Honorable Mentions:

I can’t count these as gag anime, but they’re still ridiculously funny.

Mob Psycho 100

Scissor Seven

Kill la Kill

Cells at Work!

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Ones I haven’t seen but have heard a lot about

Osomatsu-san

Himouto! Umaru-chan

Azumanga Daioh

Gin Tama

Sgt. Frog

Okay that is all just limke put this in ur feel-good tag because these shows will make you happy and donut for get to like and describe to my channel, where I post literally nothing at all ever good night.

#anime rec list #shows to watch #anime #shitpost #tumblr memes #pls rec me similar ones in the replies y'all i need another hyperfixation #rn im just using saiki k jokes to get me through the day #also this took me so long to make???????????#i have no clue why. but pls reblog just for that reason #i feel like there's a whole wave of neo-weebs coming in from bnha and stuff and they must be....guided #oh and yes. jojo is a fucking comedy to me okay #i dont think many people actually take it seriously but if you do please know #i cannot. i fell on the floor laughing trying to explain one scene to my coworker #spring break ideas #too #if u need something to fill the time with #most of these are pretty damn short #my posts

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shinrasfirst · 4 years

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11, 14 and 19 gimme your salt, deliver it to me yum

SALTY ASK MEME

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I mean.. Heidegger? Haha. And that is mostly your fault. Like I said, I liked him because I always like a good villain (and a tall guy in a uniform) but YOU really made me love him. I keep surprising random people by mentioning him in the same breath as canon characters. Why?? Because he’s super interesting!! And I love that dichotomy of him being all scary dangerous powerful man and pathetic broken lapdop at the same time. You made him such a multi-faceted character I learn new things every day <3

I’m not sure I know the fandom well enough to be able to tell who is unpopular and who isn’t. Outside the RPC I always felt that Rude was a bit unpopular and I really love him (before Remake came out, I suppose). I just love this bad boy with a golden heart thing he’s got going on. And I absolutely LOVE his relationship with Reno. This partners now and forever / parabatai trope always gets me. And he’s so mysterious too! I wish we knew more about him. At the same time I enjoy making up my own ideas about him :D Roche seems unpopular actually??? And I absolutely ADORE him. I’d pay extra money to have him in the Remake Part 2. I love everything about him; the way he talks, the way he just goes fuck my job I like this blonde boy I’ll help him because he’s MINE to fight? He’s straight out of One Piece and I’m so here for it.

Can’t really think of anyone else!

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

You know what seems to be an unpopular opinion around here? That everyone’s really good at their portrayal and at writing. I see so many posts by people being anxious about their writing and their particular portrayals EVERY DAY and I just sit here not getting it at all. You’re all so fantastic and talented and dedicated and passionate. What’s stopping you from seeing it yourselves? Sorry if that wasn’t salty enough for you, but wait for the next question, Han.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

The same I hate in all the fandoms I was in: the ship hate. It’s kind of subtle here, compared to other fandoms I’ve been in, but it’s there. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on any ship, everyone is free to hate what they want, I honestly don’t care if you hate all my OTPs. As long as you stay polite about it. I’m a little worn down from my previous fandom and probably extra touchy I suppose, but I just find making public posts calling people strange / sick / deranged because they ship something you don’t ship, really fucking unnecessary and rude. ESPECIALLY when you then tag it with the characters and/or ship. Just, don’t do that, bro. Don’t be like that. Don’t like it? Don’t follow those people. Don’t look at the tag. Blacklist it. Maybe stop being a baby. I understand if a ship makes someone genuinely UNCOMFORTABLE (because age gap, familial relation of any sort, dubious con/sent, you name it - there are plenty of things that make people uncomfortable) that they want to really not see it. But if it’s just something you dislike I find it a bit dramatic to treat it like the demon plague that needs to be exorcised from existence.

Actually I find the shipping culture here (and in other fandoms) wild in general at the moment.

I grew up during a time where fandom meant watch canon, ignore canon and write your own stuff inspired by canon. The ships we loved were never the canon ones and no one had delusions about them ever becoming canon. Ever. We all knew Harry would never bone Draco; we knew Aragorn would marry Arwen and not Legolas; we knew Naruto and Sasuke kissed because fanservice but they wouldn’t end up a couple. Therefore no one was weirdly offended when someone wrote a non-canon ship (in RP or fanfic), as if it was suddenly competition for the canon one?? Like, what world do you live in? This is FANON, RP, FANFIC. It’s not REAL. I mean none of it is real, but this is even LESS real than canon. Nothing that happens here is in any way a threat to canon, so why get offended over it? Also let’s put a general ban on hating m/m ships because they’re “erasing female muses” - no, they don’t. They all exist in our bullshit plane of fan creation, on the same level. Let’s stop hating f/m ships because they “get in the way” of your fave m/m ship - this makes no sense. The existence of one ship does not make another one less valid. I can ship Rufus with Tseng, Reno, Scarlet, Reeve and Heidegger in 5 different verses and love them all equally and it literally has no impact on anyone except me and my rp partners. And if another Rufus decides to ship Ru only with female muses, that has no impact on me and my ships. Neither of us have any impact on canon. Please just stop.

Let’s stop acting as if older characters/people can’t fall in love or have sex. Let’s stop as if age gaps are a wild bizarre thing that never happens anywhere ever. Look at your grandparents (or even parent generation I guess) generation - I bet you’ll find a LOT of at least 10 year age gaps. Are you disgusted by your grandparents/parents? [That being said, let’s please normalize women dating younger men as much as it’s normal if an older guy dates a younger woman. But that’s not a fandom problem, that’s a general society issue.] Let’s stop calling someone homophobic because they choose to play their muse straight. Not writing everyone as queer does not equal homophobia. Let’s stop acting as if people who write a lot of smut are somehow worse rpers than people who write little or no smut. At the same time let’s normalize not wanting to write smut. It’s not a requirement and not everyone likes it !!! Just talk to your partners and make sure everyone is comfortable and having fun with whatever you’re doing !! Stop judging each other and being so mean to each other, it’s awful.

Stop hating so much. Focus more on what you love and less on what you hate and you’ll immediately make life easier for you and for others.

It’s just shipping. Fictional fantasy shipping. It’s not worth getting so hateful over.

#( ooc asks. )#( meme reply. )#dogof-war

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sazorak · 4 years

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Every Game I Played in 2019, Ranked

2019 sure was a year that happened where I happened to play some video games. Here’s the ones I played enough to form opinions, in a rough ranked order of preference.

It’s kind of weird that I’ve done this for five years now, but hey. I like to talk about things that I like / dislike. Hopefully you’ll empathize with my complaints, and give ones I enjoyed a try.

As a bonus, I also tweeted about the anime I watched and enjoyed this year.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Orm & Cheep: Narrow Squeaks – 1985 – ZX Spectrum – ★

How far would you go for a joke? For the sake of a joke, I spent an hour beating an incomprehensible, shitty ZX Spectrum Game about Orm & Cheep, an 80s British children show I only know about from a Trash Night video making fun of it.

Orm & Cheep: Birthday Party – 1985 – ZX Spectrum – ★

… and also this one, though Birthday Party is marginally better than Narrow Squeaks. Marginally. Extremely marginally. Congratulations to Orm & Cheap: Birthday Party.

16. River City Girls – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

The style of River City Girls is great. I like a lot of what it’s doing in terms of look and sound. It’s just that… well, River City Ransom’s gameplay was interesting something-like 30 years ago. Gameplay wise, this game hasn’t evolved that much from OG RC Ransom. The combat certainly feels better, but as far as it controls… I can’t tell if it’s not taking advantage of modern controllers and just sticking too close to the original’s control scheme, or if side-scrolling beat-em-ups are themselves just so staid and dated these days that there’s not much to be done. I just wasn’t having much fun, and the RC Ransom progression of new techniques and stat boosting didn’t exactly make me want to keep going.

It’s a real shame because in terms of pure aesthetics and concept, the game is amazing. I just don’t actually enjoy playing it. Oh well!

15. Baba is You – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

The core gameplay concept of Baba is You is fantastic. The way you manipulate nouns and verbs to construct phrases that operate as equations in a physical environment is super interesting. The early goings of the game were quite fun.

The problem I have with this game is that when you hit a wall in it, that wall can sometimes be impenetrable. I found that Baba is You is at times too subtle with its attempt to “teach” you tricks or onboard you into approaches to puzzles; it’s possible to come to solutions without taking away the lesson the designer intended, which can make later puzzles basically impossible.

The difficulty curve feels all over the place; I was extremely high on this game early on, but after getting completely blocked moving forward for hours on end, with the only real recourse being to either look stuff up or stare at past puzzles to try to figure out what apparently crucial lesson I missed despite coming to my own solutions, I ultimately decided to just do something else.

14. Cadence of Hyrule – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Zelda has great music. Crypt of the Necrodancer has pretty good rhythm-game action. Combine them, and you get… well, it turns out you get a pretty OK procedurally generated Zelda-game with Necrodancer mechanics, I suppose. The appeal is easy to understand, though I’m personally not sure I care much for the final product.

I enjoyed the original Necrodancer well enough as a simple run-based, short-ish rhythm dungeon crawler. The brevity of each given “run” (stemming in part from my own inadequate skill, I suppose) worked well with the style of gameplay, in that it never really became much of a chore.

Meanwhile, I enjoy Zelda as an extended puzzle adventure game where there’s an innate unthinking flow to the actions. I’m not typically thinking much about the moment-to-moment about the actual mechanics of the action; the brain’s desires flow directly to the motion on the screen, as it were.

Combining the two results in a Necrodancer experience that’s way too long, and a Zelda experience that is way harder to control. Add the fact that the procedurally generated world isn’t that interesting and I’m just rather lukewarm on this. Meh!

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13. Super Robot Wars T – 2019 – PS4 – ★★★

It’s fantastic that Super Robot Wars is finally getting proper, high-quality localizations again. It felt like a dream to finally be able to play this franchise again after being forced to stop after the DS era. Playing through the rather roughly translated, and somewhat monotonous SRW OG: Moon Dwellers was good because the OG games tended to have the highest production values and narrative quality (missing out on 2nd OG may have also helped). SRW V was my first foray into the more recent non-OG games, and so shined as something rather fresh to me.

Two years on, and two Super Robot Wars releases later, it’s plain to see that Super Robot Wars’ current annual release cadence is not great. It results in incredibly repetitive, monotonous games that rely heavily on asset reuse— both between games, and even within the same game. Part of the problem is that the derivativeness doesn’t feel additive. It’s not like SRW T is SRW V + SRW X + New Stuff; it’s more that SRW T is a reskinned SRW V, with some heavy series-asset reuse to boot. I think it’d be a bit more tolerable if it felt like these games were building on each other, but every single one feels exactly as slight and mechanically weak.

Super Robot Wars’ combat have not been particularly good from a tactical sense for a long time now. The original OG games were probably the last time the combat was particularly interesting for me, as it presented an actual challenge and difficulty curve. Nowadays, they are entirely fanservice cakewalks, even on the hardest modes. Hell, they’ve apparently decided that increasing the difficulty of the game means you don’t get to chase the special challenge goals, which actually can paradoxically make portions of the hard-mode actually easier than the normal. Bizarre!

I guess the idea is “well, folks are playing this to see the bits, so if it’s hard they won’t!” Which… I disagree? If the gameplay is deeply unsatisfying, why wouldn’t I just watch the damn series? Crossover shenanigans don’t mean much whey you don’t do much with it. Fanservice talking heads ain’t enough!

The addition of Cowboy Bebop and the return of GaoGaiGar and Gunbuster should have had me onboard. The series list for this game is fantastic. But what they do with it is so flat that about 30 chapters in, I just… stopped. It wasn’t worth it. I’d plainly seen all that it had to offer. Easy, slow, and repetitive gameplay isn’t appealing to me, even if I do get to see Spike Spiegel doing sky donuts to take out a Zaku.

Additionally: stop putting Nadesico in these games. The units are boring, the plot is boring. Stop devoting so much time to it! It sucks!!

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12. Ape Out – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Ape Out is a game where you’re a big ol’ gorilla murdering guys with guns while dope ass percussive jazz drums play to the action. It’s cool, it’s short, it could honestly probably do with being somewhat shorter, but whatever. I enjoyed it.

BattleTech – 2018 – Steam – ★★★★

Despite being famously a “mecha guy”, BattleTech has never really been my thing. While I’m not opposed to mecha-as-tank-analog, it’s not my primary focus in the genre; I like my robots to be fast, really. I like mecha getting into melee and fucking shit up. Mecha for me is a power fantasy. That’s not really BattleTech / MechWarrior’s thing. That all being said, I quite enjoyed my time with BattleTech, the PC-game rendition of the tabletop thing. It’s a neat turn-based tactical robot combat RPG with an interesting overarching campaign structure… to a point.

The first issue I had is pacing. While the game is turn-based, the combat and movement plays out in real-time. And given how lumbering these robots are, this means that a single mission can take aaaages. Think 45 minutes to an hour for a single mission. It took me about 20-30 hours to get to the campaign’s halfway point, which is when the game really started to sour on me.

The second issue is one of variance. Let me run you through the fundamental loop of the game. You are a mercenary captain that has a ship of mechs and mech pilots, and you fly around from planet to planet taking on jobs. You need money to pay for your ship to keep going, as well as to pay your pilots. It’s expensive to outfit your mechs, and severe damage to them can both REALLY eat into your budget and also take weeks in-game to repair. Missions are rated based on difficulty, and you are expected generally to field a greater “tonnage” of mechs in excess to that difficulty. This all plays out pretty well.

The game starts with you possessing mostly lighter mechs, and as you progress, you’re presented more and more missions in the campaign that require increasingly beefier mechs with more armor and more guns. Whereas in the tabletop game there’s presumably a kind of “point” system by which players are given a limited amount of tonnage that they can field on any given mission (for purposes of balance), there’s no such limit in the game; as such, you’re encouraged to field the four-ish beefiest robots you have, as they’re the most likely to kill everything fast while coming out with the least damage.

How do you get these beefy mechs? Well, you don’t buy them; instead, you’re aiming to kill opposing pilots and leave their robots as much intact as possible so that you can salvage or steal them. It’s kind of amusing; your entire gameplan after a point becomes “how the fuck do I shake this robot around a bunch such that its pilot dies???” It makes sense in practice, but if you think about it for even a second it comes across rather silly. Given you need good mechs to progress, you don’t have much other choice other than just running tonnnsss of missions and hoping you eventually get enough mech fragments to reconstruct some of your own. But beefy-ness isn’t the whole story, as some of the robots you can get just plain suck, regardless of their tonnage. You’re basically rolling dice again and again hoping a robot worthy of stealing shows up so you can kill its friends, and try to kill its pilot as gently as possible. You go through this cycle four times, across the four different weight-classes, until you’ve got what you need in terms of a team of class-appropriate mechs.

The fundamental lack of variety in what you field combines with every single mission really being “how do I kneecap everyone” instead of the given mission objective to make the game quite samey. Mission types don’t vary much, and the environments don’t constrain you all that much, either; the only ones that are particularly interesting are moons and Mars-like planets where your mechs’ ability to regulate their heat become much more constrained, which can necessitate loadout changes.

I enjoyed the story enough for what it was, but honestly? After 30 hours, I was pretty much good. I had a good time with BattleTech, but I’d had my fill.

Mortal Kombat X – 2015 – Steam – ★★★★

In my ongoing adventure of playing the Mortal Kombat games for their goofy plot / story modes and nothing else, I played Mortal Kombat X. I’m not sure there’s much to talk about these other than “Hey I enjoy their dumb ongoing narrative; I wonder where they’ll go from here!”

11. Mortal Kombat XI – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

Ditto. The plot for these games are getting sillier and sillier, and the ending of XI may be the most ridiculous yet. In a good way.

10. Devil May Cry V – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

Character action games are heavily predicated on the question of “How do we spice the game up over time so that it stays interesting… without overwhelming the player?” Devil May Cry V’s answer is “well, we’ll slowly give them more characters with their own expanding skill sets, that’ll be neat!”

It is neat, but I’m not sure it was actually a good idea. The three protagonists all have extremely different move sets, meaning that the forced switches between them on a chapter-to-chapter basis results in you never really mastering any one of them. Each character has a ton of depth, but… take, for example, Nero, the “main” protagonist. He has a sub-mechanic involved with revving his motorcycle sword to boost damage. I never actually figured out how to get to work. Never really had to, because he had so many other mechanics that were also effective, and I never had much time with him alone to dial in the weird motorcycle thing.

DMCV also does probably my least favorite gameplay gimmick of “introduce new mechanics in a boss battle!” Like great, you gave me a whole new move set here, and are now going to rate me on my performance when you’ve never given me a chance to learn these skills? Oh wait, you’re giving me new mechanics in the final boss battle!?! Fuck off. That sucks!

Also, I think I’m an outlier, but I actually preferred playing as V, the control-three-characters-at-once-while-reading-a-book guy. Just felt like I dialed his move set in easier. Weird.

9. Untitled Goose Game – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’m not going to pretend that this is a deep game, or an enduring game, or even necessarily a great game. But I had a lot of fun with it, I have a lot of good memories thinking about it, and I am glad that so many people out there are now wrestling with the fact that birds can be both terrible and also good. Untitled Goose Game carries a powerful message about avian kind. You would do well to learn from it.

8. Super Mario Maker 2 – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Mario Maker 2 is such an incremental upgrade to Mario Maker that it hardly feels like it earns that “2”. That being said: Mario Maker 1 is pretty darn good so it’s not like that’s all that bad. The additional mechanics and story mode are good, granted, but like… I had been wanting more than just Mario Maker 1.5.

As is, it was pretty easy to get bored with Mario Maker pretty quickly, given it was mostly a game I’d already played quite a bit before. The addition of the campaign held my interest for a fair amount of time, but I’m not exactly coming back to this all that often. Hopefully the content updates they seem to be rolling into it keep up.

7. Kind Worlds: Lo-Fi Beats to Write To – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

This is less a video game and more a sort of vague pen-pal application masquerading as a game, but man… the existence of this thing is neat. It’s just a program where folks write letters about their problems, and people send them stuff back. That’s it. It’s kind of a sweet thing to just exist.

I’m not a person with what would one term especially Heavy Problems, but just going through other folks letters and giving them an encouraging word is itself nice.

6. The Outer Worlds – 2019 – Epic Game Store – ★★★★

Having been deeply disappointed with the quality of Fallout 4, I was very happy to see Obsidian come back to do their own Fallout-a-like. The Outer Worlds isn’t perfect; I wish it had a bit more of a bite, the gunplay was… fine, the environment design was kind of dull, and the gameplay loop did not outlast the length of the game itself. But I had a fun enough time with it.

That said, I think the dearth of me having much to say here sort of speaks to how… rather unambitious the writing and design ended up being. There’s not a ton to say about it. It’s more responsive than a Fallout 4, to be sure, but even that caps out at a point. It doesn’t necessarily offer much in the way of RPG-style different “paths” to develop your character in terms of who they are or how they behave, beyond the sort-of four-way axis of “grouch to nice” and “corporatist to socialist.” The skill tree ends up being pretty flat, and you can basically become a master of everything by the end.

Shruggo.

5. Pokémon Sword – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Pokémon Sword/Shield is a bizarre thing— its design is constantly fighting against itself. There are tons of ease-of-use improvements– but it somehow has some of the worst online in the series. It gives you dozens of complex, half-explained systems— but also feels the need to hold your hand lest you get lost in its incredibly linear, dull story. It adds challenging Pokémon raid battles that you largely need to team up with other players to beat— but also has one of the most trivial progressions in the series. It has a huge and varied open “Wild Area” where you can catch hundreds of Pokémon before ever facing the first gym— but that wild area largely exists as a world unto its own separate from the traditional Pokémon “routes”. It doesn’t want to have a plot up until the very end when it decides that gee, I guess we have to, even if it makes no sense.

Let’s go into these in more detail.

Sword/Shield introduces a ton of gameplay improvements. Auto-saving, while problematic in places, is super useful. The ability to move Pokémon directly from the box to your party is great, and removes a lot of process headaches. Single hand controls are a godsend for both improved accessibility and general ease of use. Items are way easier to get, Pokemon are easier to raise, and this is probably the easiest game in the entire series to breed and raise “high tier” Pokemon for online battling.

On the other hand: despite your friend list being loaded into the game, you are forced to use a bizarre password system and request system that is super confusing and prone to issues. You cannot directly trade or battle or play with friends except through this, which occasionally results in headaches anytime someone uses the same four-digit password as you and your bud. The Max Raid battle system is super poorly explained in-game in terms of how you find and join others raids— I only divined it by a tweet someone made. They did away with the “GTS” trading system they had used for the past decade that allowed global Pokemon bartering, presumably in favor of encouraging more natural trades— but didn’t give any way to actually communicate with people in game what you want to trade for. It encourages more in-person interaction, but that’s once again playing into Game Freak’s obsession with the Japanese mode of gaming.

Sword/Shield perhaps has the most sheer amount of systems in any one of these games. It’s not necessarily all good, but in terms of “wow, you’re not babying us huh” it is at least interesting. There’s Pokemon that evolve based on absurd, never-explained conditions like “number of crits in a single battle”, “pass underneath this specific rock when they’re at low health”, “spin baby spin.” The wild area has tons of mechanical stuff that they let you explore without forcing your hand much, and they let you explore it freely without really railroading you. There’s a separate wild-area specific currency system based on raids / dens that you just stumble upon unprompted, really.

On the other hand, the core story progression of the game though… is perhaps the most infuriatingly patronizing thing I’ve experienced. Cutscenes happen every 15 seconds, often-times forcing your movement, and are almost of zero consequence beyond someone going HEY YOU SHOULD GO THAT WAY. The game is completely unwilling to let you get lost when going through the story. It’s constant, it’s unrelenting, it’s maddening. It literally made me mad.

Pokémon Raid battles are super interesting. The battles themselves aren’t necessarily hard, but the kinds of things they present— in terms of providing access to unique Pokémon, rare items, and the fact that they’re not as “rinse-and-repeat” as normal battles— gives the system and game increased longevity. It’s a pretty deep system, with meaningful rewards. A five-star battle is time consuming and you run the risk of failing, but if you pull it off you can get items like TRs, EXP candies, even bottle caps (super useful items that let you increase the baseline stat “DNA” of your Pokémon), and the captured Pokémon can have unique moves you’d normally have to breed and possess extremely high baseline stats. You can even get hidden secret abilities! Nice!

On the other hand: the core game progression is so piss easy and straight forward. The game’s leveling curve is all out of whack, in part because their introduction of a forced “always on” EXP share. In older games, you’d only get EXP from actively battling and beating a Pokemon in a fight, or having participated in a fight. Now, your whole team gets EXP just from being around, and you also get EXP from catching Pokemon, making curry, and all sorts of other small activities. All of this is fine or even good in the abstract as it makes raising stuff easier, but the game isn’t well balanced around it. Encounters don’t scale, which can result in you steamrolling the game if you engage with any of the game’s other systems prior to beating the game. I had to compensate by stretching my normal party of six into a party of 10, constantly swapping members out to keep the average level across the party down. Additionally, the only non-PVP reason to train and breed pokes, the Battle Tower, is so trivially easy this time that… why bother??

The wild area system is brilliant. A big criticism I’ve had with this series in the past is that the kinds of Pokemon any given player is bound to encounter and capture tend to be pretty similar. The limited amount of Pokemon that tend to be put on a traditional Pokemon route, and the limited means you have to encounter them (“hey I walk through the grass, we’ll see what pops up”) doesn’t trend towards players ending up with very different party compositions, just because there’s not a ton of options at any given point. The wild area completely tosses that out the window. As an open space, the types of things someone encounters will vary wildly— and it’s further varied by player-specific weather conditions that dynamically change the encounter tables. It completely opens up the kinds of Pokemon one can encounter early on, presenting hundreds of appropriately leveled options for players. It’s brilliant. The intermixing of both grass-only, overworld-visible, and raid-specific Pokemon also increases the range of encounters. It’s the accomplishment of the core Pokemon concept of “explore and find everything.” Finally.

On the other hand: the wild area is actually kind of boring to explore, visually speaking. It’s basically the Ocarina of Time field with sporadic patches of grass. There’s little actually diversity or mechanics to its exploration, especially when compared to the fact that… the game still has normal routes. They still behave as they always have, except that by the total remove of “Hidden Machine” mobility moves, the ability to explore geographically has been severely hampered. There’s no “gee, I can’t get there yet, guess I’ll have to come back later” except for a single mobility mechanic (the ability to go over the water, introduced very late in the game). It makes revisiting past areas mostly a box-checking exercise, and in general feels like an odd juxtaposition. They either should went all-in on the wild area or better merged the concepts together, because as is it feels… weird. Especially because the wild area could have done with being bigger and more diverse looking.

The game spends most of its time having no story at all, which is kind of boring. Juxtaposed with the railroading stuff where there’s still constant cutscenes with their mostly mediocre characters who don’t do all that much, it almost comes across as padding than anything. There are good characters (Piers and Marnie are the best, the gym leaders in general are good) but man do they try too hard to put Leon over.

But then at the end they introduce the story super quickly and it’s very dumb in a way that made me laugh out loud so congrats I guess.

All in all, I rather liked Sword/Shield. It’s no Sun/Moon— which innovated in tons of places and had an extremely charming story, cast, and progression— but the places that it innovates, and the ease-of-use improvements that they’ve put in the game, are great improvements to the baseline formula. While it’s caused a ton of drama online, the Pokédex and Pokémon Bank stuff are not huge impacts on my personal enjoyment of the game. It kind of stinks a bit, but the overall package is still quite good and fun.

The Legend of the Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Master Mode – 2017 – Switch – ★★★★★

Breath of the Wild was my favorite game the year it was released. The harder Master Mode is something that had interested me as something to check out for a replay, but I decided to wait until the shadow of my previous playthrough loomed somewhat less. Breath of the Wild is, after all, both a monumental game and also a monumentally large game. Going back to it for Master Mode would mean (by way of my own obsessive brain) 100%ing it all over again, which is extremely time consuming, even if I don’t go after the all the Koroks.

There was also this sort of reticence in my behind to confront the creeping suspicion I’ve had in my mind that some of the DLC additions have made the core game worse. Which, I would say… is probably somewhat the case. Certain DLC gear items extremely imbalance standard play and really fuck with the exploration of the game (specifically, Majora’s Mask basically making you not have to fight multiple enemy types). Still, I knew I could ignore those, and just focus down on the core experience of Master Mode: harder enemies, regenerating enemy health, and the introduction of floating platforms.

Turns out, BOTW is still fucking amazing, and while the additions Master Mode make aren’t essential, they do make for a fun second run of a fantastic game. The harder enemies make the early parts of that game WAY HARDER (making you really have to get good at using your bombs and stealth), and while that difficulty ramp doesn’t keep up throughout (which, honestly, the platforms are somewhat to blame as they make getting certain bits of higher-level loot earlier easier), it’s still just a great game to go back to.

Breath of the Wild remains my all-time favorite game. Hyped for BOTW2.

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4. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★★

Sekiro is in a sense the purest expression of the Souls formula. Stripped away of the jolly co-op, the PVP, the stats, the equipment, and most customization to speak of, Sekiro asks the simple question: can you do this? Can you learn all the systems in this quite challenging game, and engage with it on its own terms?

In its mechanical simplicity, I found Sekiro to be my favorite game of that lineage, as it has allowed them to really polish the gameplay by its singular focus. It just feels amazing to stealth around and backstab dudes, parry everything, and triumph in nail-biting sword duels. While you do gain new skills and equipment (in the form of the ninja tools), they are just supplementing the fundamental systems of the game, rather than acting as diverging ones. So really, most of your time is spent not learning wholly new methods of combat, but instead improving your mastery of the core one.

And the feel of mastering that combat is incredible. By the end you feel unstoppable; normal enemies that would have been challenges early on are nothing. Even a lot of the bosses become trivial as-time goes on, bar the few ‘mastery test’ bosses interleaved throughout the progression. This isn’t some “hey I got more EXP and now over-level for everything!” thing, either; this is me, the human holding the controller getting skilled enough to become a Sekiro master. It’s an amazing feeling.

I beat every single boss in the game, including the hidden ones, and enjoyed the hell out of it.

3. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’m very much on the record as being a huge IGAvania partisan. I fuckin’ love the core loop of that permutation of the Metroidvania formula. Koji Igarashi no longer being able to make Castlevanias hurt me. A lot. Over a decade of time spanned between the last IGAvania game, Order of Ecclesia, and the release of Bloodstained. I was a bit worried.

Thank god Bloodstained is really, really, really good.

Bloodstained is extremely “one of those.” You move about a 2D interconnected world, collect items and abilities until you find the stuff that let you move forward in a new area. It’s kind of an eclectic hybrid of IGA’s past titles. The castle design feels very Aria of Sorrow. The shard mechanics feel close to Aria/Dawn of Sorrow’s soul system. The weapons feel very Symphony of the Night meets Portrait of Ruin. The overall mechanics of movement feel most akin to Order of Ecclesia. All in all: a good mix.

The game is massive. There’s so many weird one-off mechanics (something I appreciate), bizarre callbacks, goofs. There’s an in-depth alchemy system (mostly used for cooking, which is funny). The shard system is a bit boring in places— some shards are extremely simple and forgettable mechanically— but the shard leveling system is kind of hilarious in how broken it can become. The familiar system from SOTN is back and has been essentially perfected by making it a dedicated slot so you can just hang with a fairy or sword pal.

I wish the game had more enemy diversity, and the story left something to be desired. Many shards just aren’t very interesting. But the game is just so dang fun. The core gameplay loop is just so compelling, and the game just feels so dang good. I’m glad they took all the time to polish the gameplay feel because hooooooooooo boy.

Looking forward to those DLC characters for some additional playthroughs.

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2. Outer Wilds – 2019 – Epic Game Store – ★★★★★

“Space exploration”, “cosmology”, “archeology”, and “sociology.” While these are certainly not the only fields that dominate much of my attention, they are some big ones. The Outer Wilds is a space exploration game where you explore the structure of a strange but exquisitely constructed solar system, and dig through the remains of a mysterious vanished alien species. Also, you’re stuck in a Majora’s Mask-like apocalyptic time loop ‘cuz the sun keeps exploding. Should probably find out why that’s happening.

I went into this game completely blind, entirely based on the way Austin Walker was raving about it on twitter. Austin’s interests in heady space shit is pretty similar to my own, and turns out? Worked out quite well for me. I blindly explored this solar system for about twenty hours over the course of a couple weeks, and came away from the experience misty eyed at the ending. Outer Wilds is fantastic.

It’s a surprisingly touching and cozy for a game that mostly about you going off into space on your own, all alone. And that’s because you’re not, really. Outer Wilds is less about the science of exploration and archeology and the meaning of it, why it matters even in the darkest moments. Why do we explore? Why does science matter, divorced from the parasite of industry and markets? What value does it give to us, to future generations?

The game is built on the notion that even as we individually wander, explore, and discover, we’re all together collectively building on something that may outlive us, even outlive our species, the pursuit of a collective knowledge that transcends personal enrichment and individual accomplishments.

You are but one a few alien explorers, each on their own adventure. As you adventure, you catch their signals as you cruise across space. The things you learn and do are further built on the relics and messages left behind by the Nomai, the species that came before. This sense of a personal and emotional connection in the act of discovery is the heart of this game. We’re not standing on the shoulders of giants; we’re holding hands with those before us and those after us to build a bridge to a future that we may not live to see.

It’s a positive message of hope in the face of oblivion.

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1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★★

I’ve been really on-and-off on Fire Emblem over the years. I first got in on the franchise with Awakening, which I rather liked for its anime-ass sensibilities— though not without criticism. I found the combat kind of obnoxious in its tendency to get muddied down in the Oops You Done Fucked Up, Time To Reset junk. It was too anime-ass in some places, not the least of which being its incredibly one-note characters who had little bearing on ongoing events so as to support the permadeath system without too much wasted effort on the developers’ part. Fates, the follow-up on Awakening, only amped up these criticisms, becoming convoluted, stupid, and kind of obnoxious to play.

I had hopes that Three Houses would be an improvement. Initial impressions made it seem way more serious, way more grounded, with a lot of improved systems. Turns out: it was better than I could have dared of expected or hoped. Three Houses isn’t improvement, or even innovation; it’s a revolution.

Three Houses is great. It’s long, it’s got so many different systems going on that I hardly know where to begin with describing it, but… it’s great. It’s the platonic ideal of what I’d like out of a Fire Emblem. Things feel like they matter. The setting feels weighty, the plot is actually good, and the characters are absolutely marvelous.

No, it’s not perfect— its handling of representation could DEFINITELY be better. Some of the narrative is hokey as hell in places. Certain routes seem to have gotten more attention than others. The class-based specialization systems could do with more depth such that so many characters don’t end up mostly identically specialized to each other.

But… I found the combat extremely enjoyable. The charge-based rewind mechanic removed the feel-bad gotchas of unanticipated troop appearances and bad rolls etc. The characters are fun, and they’re kept relevant all the whole way through via creative framing of events. The ability to roam an actual physical space via the monastery made the world feel more alive, and made everything feel more real.

The writing was actually interesting and nuanced, exploring things like faith, race, social classes, feudal politics, and romance. While the three routes are largely similar, it’s interesting just how different the underlying messages of each of them ends up being. I appreciate that in this game where you otherwise spend most of your time hanging around with nobles in a church ends just short of you rolling out the guillotines by the end.

This is a tactical RPG in 2019 that I have put something like 150+ hours into, having beaten only two of the four routes. I was, and still am, deeply invested in everything that is. I’ll probably go back to the other two routes when the final DLC is out next year.

SAKURAI, PUT EDELGARD IN SMASH

#GAME OF THE YEAR #2019 #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #fire emblem: three houses #outer wilds #bloodstained #sekiro #pokemon sword/shield

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marshmallowgoop · 5 years

Note

So have you watched the other stuff Studio Trigger has made (Little Witch Academia, Darling in the Franxx)? If so, what are your thoughts?

I try to watch Trigger’s original series at least! I got tags for Kiznaiver, Space Patrol Luluco, Little Witch Academia, SSSS. Gridman, and the A-1 Pictures/Trigger collab, DARLING in the FRANXX. For some of these shows, I’ve written about my thoughts fairly extensively:

DARLING in the FRANXX

Goop Watches: DARLING in the FRANXX

Episode 1: Alone and Lonesome, More

Episode 2: What It Means to Connect, More

Episode 3: Fighting Puppet

Episode 4: Flap, Flap, More

Episode 5: Your Thorn, My Badge

Episode 6: DARLING in the FRANXX (Outline Only)

Do You Think DARLING in the FRANXX Will Have Several Tone Shifts?, DARLING in the FRANXX Has a Lot of Heart

Do You Think the FRANXX Will Only Operate with Certain Pistils?

English Simuldub

Ending Thoughts, Thoughts on Endgame Couples, Thoughts on Hir02

Episode 1: “And you weren’t frightened by my horns.”

Episode 3: “The hand she held out and the smile she offered to me alone came at a price.”

Episode 12 Quick Thoughts, Responses

Episode 13: Amazing Piece of Animation

Episode 13: Does Zero Two Recognize Hiro?

Episode 13: Zero Two Biting Hiro (and Hiro’s Response)

Episode 14: Reaction

Episode 14: Thoughts on the Ichigo Hate Train?

Favorite Moment from Kill la Kill and DARLING in the FRANXX?

Human/Non-Human Romance

Third Ending Sequence: Lily Flower Symbolism and Ikuno

Why Watch DARLING in the FRANXX?, Would You Recommend DARLING in the FRANXX?, Would You Recommend DARLING in the FRANXX and Kill la Kill to Someone Who Dislikes Fanservice?

X Symbolism

Zero Two: Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Kiznaiver

Flower Symbolism in Kiznaiver’s Ending Sequence, Revised

Kiznaiver Episodes 1 and 2: Thoughts and Impressions

What is Kiznaiver About, Exactly?

SSSS. Gridman

AX Premiere Thoughts

Space Patrol Luluco

Episode 7

Space Patrol Luluco and Kill la Kill Crossover Idea

Space Patrol Luluco’s Finale vs. Kill la Kill’s Finale ☂

Buuuut I know that’s a lot, so:

tl;dr?

Inferno Cop: Okay, I admit it. YouTube-Poop-styled humor is ridiculously amusing to me. (I once did a whole final project in college about YouTube Poop. Yes, really.)

And the horrible cut-out animation will never fail to make me crack up. Inferno Cop is truly a masterpiece.

Space Patrol Luluco: Hey, I actually finally picked this one up at Comic Con about a month ago! While I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Luluco much, I think it’s actually my second-favorite Studio Trigger series after Kill la Kill. It’s just really cute and silly and fun. As I realized in excruciating detail at a Comic Con panel I went to, most anime humor honestly doesn’t do much for me, but when the panelists showed a clip from Luluco? That got me smiling. Things can get mean-spirited at times (which isn’t my cup of tea), but overall, I think Luluco has some real heart. And it’s adorable.

Kiznaiver: Oh, I was so excited to love this show! I was lucky enough to see an advanced screening of the first two episodes, and I was totally hooked. It was drop-dead gorgeous—and probably the prettiest series Trigger has ever put out—and I was very intrigued by the plot and characters. I remember just coming back to my hotel room at like 3:00 am after the premiere, utterly filled with excitement. I mean, Kiznaiver was directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi, the episode director behind the two episodes that got me hooked on Kill la Kill (episodes 5 and 18)!

But… my excitement quickly died. The story tried to develop way too many characters in way too little time, and I never enjoyed the romantic pairing of Katsuhira and Noriko, finding it shallow, undeveloped, and nonsensical (in a bad way), which… kind of ruins a lot of the series when that’s arguably the heart of the whole thing.

Kiznaiver is still super, super pretty, though. That last episode’s animation got me shook.

Little Witch Academia: I wish I loved this one more than I do. I really, really admire Yoh Yoshinari as an artist and director, and I know LWA is totally his baby, and the animation in both the series and shorts is so good, and I don’t know if I’ve ever related to any character ever as much as I relate to Akko Kagari, but… I just… don’t really have any strong feelings one way or another about the work on a whole.

Maybe my issue is that Little Witch Academia comes off as rather meandering to me. I’ve always felt (perhaps very wrongly!) that the focal point of the story is the relationship between Akko and Ursula/Chariot, but there’s just… so much else going on.

I can relate, though. One of my babies is the first novel I ever wrote and completed back when I was 13. There are so many ideas I have for the story, and I’ve tried to stuff everything into my drafts. But you end up with an unfocused narrative without a solid core when you do that, and I sadly feel that that’s what happened with Little Witch Academia. There’s a lot of good stuff, but it’s just too much for one story!

I will say that I enjoyed both OVAs more than the series, though, and the first OVA is my favorite.

DARLING in the FRANXX: Oh, DARLING in the FRANXX. While I definitely had the obvious problems with this show when it started, the promise of a legitimate human/non-human romance was more than enough for me to keep watching anyway.

But after episode 15… everything fell apart. The romance I was there for became boring and bland, with the leads nauseatingly reiterating how in love they were instead of actually talking to each other or dealing with any of their problems. So much potential character depth got swept under the rug, and to make matters worse, the world building revealed itself to be even more ludicrous than imagined, there were some absolutely bizarre and potentially very hurtful messages about love and sexuality that I can’t even begin to make sense of, and the less I say about the ending, the better.

Of course, a poor conclusion doesn’t always spoil what I did like about a work; I still obviously adore Kill la Kill even though I despise the finale and the OVA legitimately makes me feel ill. But DARLING in the FRANXX is one of those stories where my disappointment is so great that I kind of… don’t even want anything to do with it anymore. The stuff I had loved is soured by how everything ended up.

I still have some great DARLING content in my queue that I definitely intend to post because it’s not the fault of any fan that the final product came out so lackluster. But I’m personally just pretty done with this one.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from DARLING in the FRANXX, though, it’s that I probably should hold off on buying merchandise until I’m sure I actually really like the thing. I certainly didn’t spend anywhere near as much on this show as I have for Kill la Kill, but I still dropped a fair amount on stuff that’s kind of wasted on me.

Live and learn….

SSSS. Gridman: I got the chance to see the premiere of the first episode at Anime Expo last year, but I unfortunately can’t say I was all too fond of what I saw. I’m slow to warm up to comedies, and while I love cliches and the series definitely acknowledges and has fun with its cliches, the characters didn’t stand out enough for me to find the cliches particularly endearing.

Also, there’s absolutely no deep or meaningful reason behind it or anything, but I do not like what I’ve seen about Akane. That kind of character archetype annoys the crap out of me.

But Gridman is really neat from a directorial and compositional point of view; I really liked, for example, how there weren’t just a bunch of boring shot-reverse-shot conversations, but conversations that spent time focusing on the backgrounds and scenery and environment instead. I also feel like I’ll really, really enjoy Gridman if I actually watch it past episode 1, but… I’m bad at doing things.

I think when I do watch it, though, I’ll do a livebloggy sort of deal?

Others: I haven’t seen anything else from the studio (unless you’re counting stuff animators from Trigger have worked on, like Takafumi Hori’s contribution to Steven Universe, which are always excellent, expressive, beautiful animations), but I’m moderately excited for the upcoming Promare. The fact that it’s apparently a family-friendly film has got my interest.

And I got a kool Promare sticker already from Kumoricon last year, too!

#official-raven-branwen #official raven branwen #replies #ramblings #long post #inferno cop #space patrol luluco #kiznaiver #little witch academia #darling in the franxx #ssss. gridman #spoilers #?

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warsofasoiaf · 5 years

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Any thoughts on Baldur's Gate 3?

Baldur’s Gate was already a completed series, I don’t see any room to add into the story of the Bhaalspawn. As I understand the current Forgotten Realms lore, Bhaal is back. A standard comic book-style retcon perhaps, but the story of Baldur’s Gate is and always was about the Bhaalspawn, and that journey is over.

Of course, Baldur’s Gate itself is a city, not a person, and Baldur’s Gate II and Throne of Bhaal never touched the city. Hell, you never even made it to the city proper until halfway through the game. But that’s what it is, the city of Baldur’s Gate, for good or for ill, is inextricably linked to the Bhaalspawn. That’s what happens when you create a legendary piece of media.

There are plenty of stuff in the Forgotten Realms catalog if a developer wants to make a new game that I’m not sure why they didn’t do that and rely on the strength of Larian’s Divinity titles to use as their marketing punch. Certainly, trying to bring in the older RPG fans who played Baldur’s Gate when it came out (like myself) seems like a sound marketing choice, but I’m wondering how the balance between appealing to new fans and appealing to older fans via fanservice will shape out. A clumsy NPC with a silly accent and a fluffy critter will make me sigh about missing the point of Minsc.

Similarly, from what I’ve been hearing, they say that leveling the old-school Baldur’s Gate way is too slow for the modern generation, but that runs into losing a lot of the magic of the original Baldur’s Gate in discovery. Seeing what bizarre things you could find in each new map was fun. This wood had goblins and wolves, okay for my first level Bhaalspawn and Imoen to handle, but the Gnoll Stronghold needed a full party lest the gnolls butcher you on their halberds, but you need an open slot because Dynaheir is hanging out there, and once she gets fireball it’s a game-changer. I’m worried that they’ll lose some of the magic and make a game only with the brain, and not with the heart.

I’m cautiously pessimistic, such as it were.

Thanks for the question, TBH.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#baldur's gate iii

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years

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Summer 2018 Anime Overview: Planet With

What a strange, unexpected little gem this show is.

Planet With follows an amnesiac young boy named Soya Kuroi who lives with strange roommates- an upbeat but mysterious girl named Ginko and giant cat monster ...thing. One day, a strange alien spaceship arrives where Soya lives and a squad of superheroes valiantly battle to protect the town from this threat. Ginko shows up and tells Soya he needs to jump in this giant cat robot and fight. No, not fight the invading aliens. He has to fight the superheroes.

Planet With starts out being jam-packed with plot and unabashedly weird and stays that way. The show moves at an absolutely breakneck pace. It stuffs 50 episodes worth of robot anime into twelve, and contains like three different climactic battles. There’s even a time skip. But the weird thing is...it works. Planet With is downright inspirational in its storytelling efficiency. It packs in so many characters and SO much happens, yet somehow it manages to use its time wisely enough that I ended up caring about pretty much all of its many characters and their development felt natural rather than forced. And despite the intensity and volume of events, the plot remained coherent and entertaining.

There were a couple parts that did feel rushed, and since it was so much at once I feel like I need to rewatch to fully grasp the series, but most of all, I’m impressed by the way this show somehow distilled The Full Wacky Space Battle Anime Experience (tm) into a short time frame. And the animation is good! It is bold and action packed and works well for the show.

And the quickness of how Planet With handled things made it downright refreshing (and hilarious) at times. I’ll give an example: Soya’s civilian friend (and obvious love interest), Nozomi, catches on extremely quickly to the fact he’s doing robot battles, basically guesses his entire backstory based off his weird behavior and just as quickly starts questioning him about it. Soya’s reaction to this is to freak out and run away- at which point Nozomi football tackles him and basically yells “NO ITS OKAY YOU CAN TRUST ME!” and he quickly gives in, explains his weird situation to her, and is like “uh. so. not sure if that sounds at all believable but. you asked.”

Not only is the honest communication nice to see, not only does it genuinely sell that Nozomi s the smart cookie the narrative has set her up to be, but its charming as hell and feels so natural to who these characters are. The fact Soya’s first reaction to being exposed is to just stammer and BOLT DOWN THE STREET reminds you that, yes, this is a teenager, and Nozomi’s refusal to let him get away and how she throws all dignity out the window to make her point is just....it gives me so much affection for them both. They’re kids and they’re ridiculous and I love them. Having Nozomi let in the loop so quickly is refreshing, it makes their relationship feel genuinely trusting and equal, there’s just a lot going on in just that one scene that I love.

Let’s talk about character a little more, because Planet With has a very vibrant cast. Soya comes off as a typical hotheaded shonen protagonist, and well, he is, but as you learn more about him and the situation he’s facing, you realize he’s trying his best to cope with some huge stuff. He has a good arc and matures a lot. What especially struck me is this moment where Soya realizes he has no reason to fight anymore, he’s just a kid who’s not involved, he shouldn’t be asked to do this, and though he’s been channeling his grief into fighting, he just can’t anymore, he’s tired and overwhelmed and sad. It’s nice to see the show touching on how unfair it is to ask a child to fight, and actually having the other characters react to this with understanding rather than trying to force him to continue is....really nice to see.

Each character has their own fears and insecurity to grapple with,which is especially apparent in the scenes where the spaceship messes with their minds and gives them the dream world they desire- a couple of those scenes are genuinely heartbreaking and striking.

Even the antagonists are given layers and its shown why they think what they’re doing is right. The show centers thematically on how to suppress and respond to violence and it explores various sides of that debate. Can humanity be trusted with power? Is extreme pacifism or extreme force the way to deal with problems? What is the value of revenge? Is freedom or safety more important? Can we forgive and move past horrible wrongs? You may not end up agreeing with the show’s conclusion on all this, but the fact it confronts these questions so directly and really gives them some thought is nice. You can see WHY this is a conflict, and where both sides are coming from.

The show also has a pretty good-sized and solid cast of female characters and doesn’t treat them like garbage! it actually gives a lot of them solid arcs where they develop and go through all kinds of different emotions, always a plus!

Ginko may give a slight impression of being a airhead catgirlmaid cliche at first, but she soon shows herself to have wisdom and depth- her role in the narrative was one of the most pleasant surprises. She was way more involved in the fight than I thought she’d be and the found family she formed with Soya is one of the sweetest things about the show.

Nozomi’s character development is largely tied up in her relationship to Soya, so I kinda wish she had stuff going on besides being his supporter, but I do adore how she was treated with respect by the narrative, bought in on things as a civilian, and how brave and smart and loyal she is. She’s inspiring to Soya with her kindness and inspiring in general. And their relationship is genuinely sweet.

There’s an entire mini-arc focusing on the bond between two of the superhero girls- Miu and Harumi- and it is very dramatic and very gay and very about ladies inspiring and connecting with and saving each other, y’know, all the stuff i’m here for. We also had Benika, a badass lady is a suit (always gets a thumbs up from me) who had her own arc, and a woman who was on the semi-antagonist side. The women are all treated as competent and capable in combat.

The show is relatively mild on fanservice for a shonen-mech show and doesn’t get too gross or over-the top- probably the most noticeable scene is a conversation in a hot-tub, and even that doesn’t have ridiculous camera angles or anything. Mostly anything fanservice-y is goofy and tongue in cheek, rather than humiliating or non-consensual. The show actually has the honor of containing the only anime boob joke that’s actually made me laugh in recent memory (the over-the-top narration was on point). (There is one questionable element to warn for, namely an adult{?) woman briefly disguises herself as a high schooler and acts pretty flirtatiously with minors- thankfully it doesn’t go too far, but its something to watch out for.)

Planet With’s sense of humor and fun is just great in general. It deals with some serious and emotional topics, but never loses that whimsical, weird edge. It was clear from the beginning, when the super-threatening alien spaceship was some weird happy bear thing marked “peas”, that the show had a wonderfully bizarre and goofy atmosphere and it never loses that. Soya being endlessly foiled in his quest to eat some meat, the bizarre anthropomorphic animals, our heroes aggressively meowing as a battle cry- the show is so unapologetic in its weirdness and not afraid to embrace all the wonderful, colorful silliness inherent in its genre.

Basically, if you like giant-robot shows or action shows or even weird cat and dog monsters, I really recommend this show. Its a fast-paced wild ride full of fun characters and colorful storytelling. It’s occasionally cheesy, often bizarre, a little dizzying and sometimes genuinely emotional- but it’s always an experience and I had a good time watching it.

#planet with #anime overview #summer 2018 anime #soya kuroi #kuroi soya #ginko kuroi #kuroi ginko #anime #nozomi takamagahara #miu inaba #harumi kumashiro

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noddytheornithopod · 5 years

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So I finished Danganronpa 2 and... MY HEAD HOLY FUCK THAT WAS A LOT TO PROCESS

All the weird glitching and shit was quite eerie, it did get a bit frustrating sometimes actually.

IT’S A GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME (or rather, the Neo World is a simulation designed to undo the brainwashing of the Ultimate Despairs - the students here). Seriously, whenever Monokuma said that it was hilarious.

Hey it’s Alter Ego! Fucking Junko created her own version of it to upload into the dead students, holy shit that’s freaky.

Okay, Makoto showing up was really cool. Byakuya appeared too, which was awesome. Oh yeah, am I missing someone? Oh of course... KYOKO KIRIGIRI APPEARS TOO!!!!!! They show up because the shutdown sequence they created needs at least half of the number of students that were in the game.

I swear Junko was hot for <akoto with how she talked about him at some points... opposites attract?

So the Ultimate Despairs actually were recruited one by one and through Junko’s persuasion... now I see why people don’t like DR3′s portrayal of things, it reduces it all to “lol she made anime that made them wackos”. How it’s described here sounds much more compelling, it’s basically her just being charismatic and influencing and manipulating people to brainwash them, and her fellow despairs then used that across the world, including with the reserve suicide.

The stuff they did to the world was shocking, but themselves? YIKES. Nagito having the fucking arm of Junko, holy shit. Also... he seemed to still hate Junko even as a Despair? Also... Hajime as Izuru telling him the shit Nagito said to Hajime about how he’s worthless... ironic.

Okay honestly the stuff they did in general is pretty fucked up. Especially... NECROPHILIA???? FUCKING NECROPHILIA????? That was so Teruteru who did that (or Soda, it’s one of the horny ones, duh).

This final chapter was seriously meta, it’s wild. IT’S A GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!

Giant Alter Ego Junko said her boobs are like 15 metres wide??? That’s weird. And she also mentions how it’s not a fanservice game, shit.

Junko’s voice acting was much better in this game... I actually found her kinda charismatic even as she was fucking awful instead of last time where she was just fucking awful... OH NO, AM I BEING SEDUCED INTO HER CULT OF DESPAIR???

Just as I thought, Nagito wanted to off everyone but Chiaki since they were all the Despairs... ironically, this would leave all their bodies blank, meaning Junko could hijack them. Okay seriously, the fact she wants to hijack everyone’s bodies so everyone will end up as Junko... that’s honestly pretty terrifying. It gave me freaking LOTS OF ME flashbacks.

Chiaki showed up to save Hajime after she died, holy shit. And she basically shows up to help him choose to do things his own way in the end.

All the ending stuff and the themes is something I’m REALLY going to have to process. Like... despair is defeated, but instead of hope they choose the “future”. I mean, I kinda see that as a form of hope in itself, but I guess the thing here is that they’re kinda creating their own path? I guess kinda like what Makoto decided in the first game? Just now, there’s more grey areas and every option has elements of hope and despair. Oh my gosh, I’m confused just writing this.

THANK YOU CHIAKI for telling us that it’s not important about whether you’re born with talent or not, just whether you believe in yourself. Hajime chooses to be his own person in the end and do that, and that’s what he needed to initiate the shutdown. Now we see just how much of a foil Nagito is to him.

Oh yeah Hajime was basically turned into freaking Izuru... and Hope’s Peak basically ALWAYS was researching talent to create this “Ultimate Hope”. In other words, they made Hajime a fucking ubermensch, essentially. And he killed the student council (which DR3 also contradicts, they went with the “Junko set it up” route), which started the Tragedy.

Look I know Kyoko is my big thing, but I legitimately have to wonder... since her father was the Headmaster of Hope’s Peak, what does she think of him now if he pretty much was involved in this project? I think DR3 portrayed him as conflicted or something, but I barely remember and honestly it seems like it contradicts stuff in 2 anyway so whatever lol

I definitely want to think more about the whole “gifted vs ordinary” theme. Like, it seems like the Tragedy was even able to happen was because Junko basically exploited the resentment of the Reserve Students and used that to convert them to her ideology. Nagito obviously has his social Darwinist views on this too. Junko also said something like that those who have talent end up with despair... this is kind of what she herself experiences, funnily enough. I think she said it’s because you eventually get knocked off the top, essentially. It’s certainly quite a bizarre worldview for sure, but yeah, she seems to have her own resentment for talented people in a way, but not in a sense to actually challenge the idea we even need this divide.

Chiaki’s thank you to Hajime’s, aww...

Small thing, but the ending where they showed Makoto, Kyoko and Byakuya was sweet. Makoto admiring how they were able to find a way to carve out their own futures, their nice Future Foundation outfits and Byakuya being friendly and noting Makoto’s sentimentality. They also chose to come with him even though they knew how risky it was, they had to do something even if the Future Foundation is fucked and the Neo World wasn’t fully prepared. I mean, Kyoko doesn’t surprise me that she’d work with Makoto, but Byakuya joining too really is a testament to how much he’s grown. Guess Hina, Hiro and Toko had their own stuff to do lol (I know Toko is in Ultra Despair Girls for example). Also... Kyoko’s tease about Toko to Byakuya, wow, she can show her sense of humour when she wants to. XD

But yeah, that was a pretty awesome experience. I’m not sure over whether I prefer 1 or 2, since even if 2 had a more complex and intriguing plot with its twists and turns, 1 I feel emotionally impacted me more and also had the isolated horror aspect to it. Plus, Kyoko Kirigiri. :P I found 1′s trials easier to manage overall since even on easy 2 made them more complicated, though I enjoy the brain surfing minigame 2 added. 2 also has stronger music overall. I guess 2 is more “fun”, in a sense, while 1 has that eerieness to it and unknown factor that makes you identify with the characters more? Obviously 2 had great characters too, in general I just felt more for 1′s. I guess they balance each other out in the end, lol. But yeah, overall I really enjoyed Danganronpa 2, as I did with the first game.

#danganronpa 2 #danganronpa

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murasaki-murasame · 6 years

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:re episode 16 continued to be Really Really Good [tm] so here I am, still talking about this anime, lmao :)

At this point I’m also basically using these posts as a way to talk about my feelings toward the manga, so, well, keep that in mind while reading.

Thoughts under the cut, and spoiler warning for the entire :re manga.

Hoo boy there sure is a lot to talk about in this episode! I wasn’t entirely sure how they were going to manage to adapt up to the end of this arc in one episode, but they managed to do it, and I think they did it incredibly well. There were some very obvious cuts, but I think they were mostly for the better.

It probably pissed some people off, but I honestly liked how they only really showed bits and pieces of how Touka’s crew got out of Cochlea. The anime really wasn’t missing out on much there, aside from more fight scenes. And I think the slideshow-y way they presented it actually managed to keep the comedic timing of Hirako’s resignation better than if they handled the scene more normally, so that was nice. Overall it just wasn’t a very important scene and I’m glad that the anime has it’s priorities straight.

I think I mentioned this in my last post but I wasn’t sure about it at the time, but at this point it definitely looks like the anime is completely cutting out the plot point of Koma and Irimi coming back into the story because uuuuuh apparently they didn’t actually die at the end of the first series? I guess??? I’m really relieved the anime cut that whole thing out, since it was so, so pointless in the manga. It only really served as shallow fanservice to people who wanted the Anteiku gang to get back together. For years now people have complained about how much Ishida likes ‘bringing characters back to life’, and those two were one of the most bizarre examples of that. And given that those two did literally nothing of value in the manga even after coming back, we’re really not going to notice their absence at all in the anime. [Maybe this will also mean we won’t get that incredibly awkward last-minute bit of exposition about the concept of zombie quinques]

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the way that Eto died without having one last chat to Kaneki, but to be honest in the manga it always felt a bit awkward that he just sorta willingly left her to die.

I’m also really not sure yet how I feel about the way they handled the scene of Marude assassinating Yoshitoki. I wish they could have included the bits of dialogue that explain how Marude received info from Hide that lead him to finally believing that the Washuu clan are ghouls, but oh well. It doesn’t really change things too much, especially since we know Hide’s still alive in the anime, and we even saw him getting onto the boat Marude was on at the start of the last episode.

And then of course we get to the biggest cut this episode made, and probably the one that’ll be most controversial to people. The way they they cut out about 95% of the stuff that went down between Mutsuki and Torso. I think it’s really gonna piss a lot of people off, but you know what? I loved it. I feel like the anime scriptwriter actually gives a shit about Mutsuki as a character and is handling him with infinitely more respect and subtlety than Ishida ever did in the manga. We’ll have to see how the anime handles him over the next few episodes to definitively see once and for all if they’re going to avoid the worst of what the manga does with him, but I’m pretty confident at this point that they’re completely changing course.

For the sake of any anime-only people who might for whatever be reading this, and also just to remind people that read the manga of what exactly went down and why I never liked it, I’m just gonna recap what happened with them in the manga a bit, so I can talk in more depth about it.

The stuff the anime showed with Torso abducting Mutsuki and taking him off to a cave on Rushima was fairly 1:1 with the manga, but after that, we got some scenes sprinkled throughout the arc where we saw what happened with them after that, which mostly involved Torso cutting off Mutsuki’s arms and legs, sticking him in a dress, and in general obsessively treating him as a replacement for a girl that Torso apparently knew as a kid that he had a crush on. The manga had a whole chapter-long flashback showing his childhood, and how he lived in poverty with an abusive father, but there was a girl he liked, who one day got killed by his father, which just worsened Torso’s existing mental issues and lead to him eventually becoming a serial killer, starting with killing his father. And after that he’s been obsessed with chasing after specific kinds of women to try and basically fill the void left by his childhood crush, but his lack of empathy and general contempt for his victims in practice lead to him developing a habit of dismembering them until they’re just a torso that won’t ever leave him. There’s a bonus page in the manga, I think in volume four of :re, which is some kind of a journal entry written by him where he spells out his various mental issues and why he’s obsessed with torsos and whatnot.

As a fun fact: that’s also the only time thus far that the official translation of the series has ever used she/her pronouns toward Mutsuki. In the journal entry written by a dude who also waxes philosophically about his own lack of empathy and how he only views people as their physical bodies and nothing else. And while I’m at it, even after Urie finds out about Mutsuki’s biological sex in the auction arc, he still keeps referring to him with he/him pronouns, even in his internal thoughts, and Mutsuki’s character description at the start of nearly every volume of the official release of :re includes the sentence ‘Assigned female at birth, he decided to transition after undergoing the Quinx procedure’. Just in case anyone needed a reminder that Mutsuki is indeed trans.

Anyway, back to what I was saying, we also got some scenes in the Rushima arc in the manga with Mutsuki becoming increasingly resigned and despondent about his situation, and we eventually get some flashbacks to his childhood, where we find out that he also had an abusive family that he also ended up murdering at one point. Then he told the CCG that a ghoul killed them all, and that’s how he joined the CCG.

To be blunt, I think the way Ishida originally handled all of this in the manga was pretty awful, especially now that we know exactly where it was all heading. He tried way too hard to try and make Torso look sympathetic with his sob-story flashback, and on the flip side, he really tried way too hard to make it into one big contrived twist about Mutsuki ‘secretly being a huge murderous psycho this whole time’ or whatever. I think at the same time there was also a flashback to the auction arc that, for the first time in the manga, made it clear that he ate some dead investigators to heal his wounds [which the anime made immediately clear as soon as it happened], and I think Ishida tried to spin that as part of the twist of him having been a psycho the whole time, or something like that. It was dumb. Oh, and also, there was some pretty graphic descriptions of how Mutsuki mutilated Torso’s corpse, involving some genital mutilation, which apparently Ishida decided to just make into a running thing with him, since in the manga Mutsuki was the one that fought Takizawa and injured Akira and whatnot before the other Qs arrived on the scene, and he also decided to just randomly mutilate Takizawa’s genitals during their fight. Somehow this isn’t even the end of the list of things I’m mad about with how the manga handled Mutsuki :) This is pretty much just the START of the bullshit :) I cannot reiterate enough how happy I am that the anime seems to be nipping this all in the bud and avoiding the gross [and frankly transphobic] shit entirely.

That’s pretty much the gist of it, but it’s also worth noting that the note things end on with Mutsuki in this arc is very distinctly different between the manga and the anime. In the manga, the Qs don’t find out about what happened between him and Torso at all, and they don’t realize that there’s anything wrong until the next arc. But in the anime, Urie finds Mutsuki in the cave, surrounded by Torso’s various body parts. I really really like this change, and the fact that the anime decided to end this part of this arc with Urie comforting him is really what cements my hope that they’re going to entirely avoid the really awful stuff that goes on in the next arc, which only really happened because Mutsuki’s mental health and overall stability just went careening off a cliff because none of the Qs knew there was anything up with him. So I hope the fact that we’re already seeing Urie comforting Mutsuki over this makes me hope that won’t be how it plays out here. It actually reminds me a fair bit of the really clumsy way the manga tried to have Mutsuki reconcile with the Qs in the final arc. It works WAY better here.

I really think the way they handled Urie finding Mutsuki was really beautiful and touching, especially after the earlier stuff with Urie frantically trying to figure out what had happened to him, and talking about wanting to go home with him. It was just a really nice, sweet way to handle it, and I think it gives Mutsuki far more respect and dignity than the manga did. Similarly to how the anime portrayed him eating some dead investigators as something sad but necessary without trying to cast any moral blame on him for it, that’s how this episode felt too, with how they framed Mutsuki killing Torso. Instead of it being an overblown ‘oooh he’s actually EVIL and PSYCHOTIC and MURDEROUS oooh how spoopy’, we just see the aftermath of it, and Mutsuki is just portrayed as the sad, abused victim he truly is, who just deserves sympathy and comfort for what he’s had to go through. I also got a real sense of smug vindication about how the anime didn’t even bother doing anything with Torso, and they didn’t even come close to trying to give him a tragic backstory to make us feel bad for him. They just killed him off-screen. I really love that. Sure it’d probably seem anti-climactic, especially to anime-only people, but it’s so much better than what the alternative would have been. Torso deserves to go out like the shitty nobody he is.

As for the aforementioned fight scene with the Qs against Takizawa, I really liked how that was done. A lot of it was definitely because, in the manga, this was really one of the starting points of us seeing where Ishida was taking Mutsuki, and how he was trying really really hard to frame him as being antagonistic. Urie accidentally hurting Akira, and Akira herself talking about how she’s aware that trying to protect a ghoul is a serious crime, works a lot better than Mutsuki being the one to attack her, and him telling Akira about what the crime she’s committing is, and making it clear that he’d act against her if she becomes a ghoul sympathizer.

They also handled the stuff with Amon pretty nicely. I still feel like his entire role in :re has always been one big question mark for me and basically everyone else in the fandom, but I’ve at least always liked his line from this scene about the importance of always thinking about whether or not you’re doing the right thing.

I’m also really warming up to how the anime is just showing the new three Qs members in action before any proper, dedicated introductions. It works pretty nicely, in my mind.

I still wish they could have actually been a bit less faithful with how they adapted the stuff with Kanou, and added some stuff to it, but oh well. I at least got a bit of a kick out of the stuff with Roma.

As I mentioned, they really cut down on the remaining stuff they had with the Cochlea arc, but I quite liked how they handled everything with Arima’s death. For one thing, it was nice to see them make the Garden feel a bit more tangible and ‘real’, in a sense, than the manga did. I always had a tough time visualizing it in my head while reading the manga since we only saw bits and pieces of it. I also liked how they associated the field of white flowers with it, but I can’t remember if that was already in the manga. It might have just been more clear in the anime since it’s in colour.

I imagine some people are gonna be REAL mad that they cut out the whole dramatic arc-ending scene of Kaneki killing some CCG people while monologuing about how he’s now the new One-Eyed King, but I liked it. I like how the anime really committed to ending this episode on a bittersweet note. I’ve also always thought that the whole ‘re’ pun with that scene in the manga was always a bit more dumb than other people think it was.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about how the anime didn’t outright show the flashbacks to Arima meeting Eto and deciding to start working with her, but they at least make it clear enough that that’s what happened. At the very least, adding in some bombshells like that probably would have made the pacing of this episode feel a lot more wonky.

And with that, we’re now going to get into the Goat arc! This is gonna be where things get interesting. I think it’s probably going to be about five episodes long, but it’s also four volumes long in the manga, so we’ll see how it goes. The main thing is that there’s a WHOLE lot of stuff in this arc that can easily be cut to save time.

It’s honestly hard to tell for the most part how exactly they’re gonna handle this arc, but at the very least, as I’ve said, it’s very clear that they’re going to remove or at least heavily change/condense the stuff that goes down with Mutsuki, which would save a fair bit of time. This would also presumably affect the final arc, and remove a good few chapters of content from that as well.

My memory on the exact details of this arc are kinda fuzzy since I haven’t gone back to read it ever since I first read it as it came out, but going by the preview stuff for the next episode, it also looks like they might be cutting out the really awkward mini-arc from the manga where Kaneki and co had to go raid one of Kanou’s labs to get medicine for Akira and then they find Amon there and fight him and then take him back to their base. I honestly still have NO goddamn clue what the fuck Amon was doing there. It looks like in the anime he’s just going to casually show up and be part of Goat almost immediately, which feels much more natural.

It also looks like we’re getting the whole sequence where Touka gets Akira and Hinami to reconcile their differences and make amends with each other. I’ve always thought that scene was a bit awkward, but I get what Ishida was going for with it, and I respect it. So I’m happy with the anime keeping it. At the very least, I think it does a nice job of fleshing out Touka a little bit more, which is always nice, and it’s a very necessary part of Akira’s development.

I wonder if the next episode will also include her and Amon hooking up, or if that’ll happen later in the arc. I honestly don’t remember when exactly in the manga it happened, so I’m just guessing.

I was kinda hoping that they’d at least slightly change up the formation of Goat, since the way Ishida portrayed Kaneki at the start of this arc was really weird, and didn’t last long. Hopefully it’ll feel a bit less awkward in the anime.

Since we’re getting closer and closer to the moment of truth on this one, I suppose I should reiterate at least some of my feelings about Touka and Kaneki’s relationship, and how it might be handled in the anime. I have a LOT of feelings about it, but I’ll save some of it for later. [fake edit: ok I ended up talking more about this than I intended, but whatever, lol]

Just to get right to the point, I still think it’s entirely possible that they just won’t get together at all in the anime. I’m not exactly betting on it, but still. It still just sticks out to me a lot that they’ve made a lot of subtle changes to their scenes together in the anime thus far that build up to paint a very different image of their relationship.

One of the big things is how the insert song they made for the cafe scene in episode 2 of :re season 1 is pretty explicitly about Touka remembering her crush on Kaneki, and coming to terms with the need for her to let go of it and move on with her life. I mean, it literally ends with ‘Although I’ve found you, I know this meeting will not last. I have to let go. Continue finding your own way, though I will miss you. It’s time to wake from this dream’, after how the chorus and whatnot is her talking about how she’d dreamed that one day he’d be with her again like nothing ever happened and he never left her. The song is pretty clearly all about her accepting that things aren’t just going to magically go back to how they used to be between them, and that she needs to move on with her life, and let him move on with his. It’s not definitive proof of anything, but it’d make it pretty awkward all on it’s own if they do actually just, y’know, hook up in the anime as if he never left her in the first place. [Remember when I mentioned before how the manga brought Koma and Irimi back to really awkwardly force this feeling of the Anteiku gang getting back together like nothing ever happened? Yeah].

It’s also worth noting that even after that, the anime cut out and changed some minor things. For example, they removed a scene where Touka talks to Tsukiyama about the whole Kaneki situation, and she said that she thinks the :re cafe can be a place for him to return to if he gets his memories back. They also changed up the scene where Uta visited her cafe a bit by having Kaneki also visit at the same time. Which, ironically, means that the anime has him and Touka meeting face to face at least marginally more often than they did in the manga, but I think that scene actually served to further hammer in the idea that they’ve moved on from each other. Touka continued treating him like any other customer, and her line to Uta about how she’s ‘going to keep doing what she’s already decided on’ certainly gains a different sort of tone when taken along with the various things the anime has cut or added or changed, that I just talked about. It comes across more like a reminder to the audience that she’s committed to moving on from him.

And on the flip side, Kaneki didn’t really react to her at all in that scene, from what I remember, and in fact seemed to just be preoccupied with his lingering nostalgia about Anteiku in general, which was shown really nicely in the [also anime-original] scene of him having a bit of a flashback to Yoshimura and Anteiku itself. It’s also worth noting that because of this whole change, they removed the stuff with how, in the manga, Kaneki was at home while Uta visited Touka, and he was actually wondering to himself if Touka might be out on a date with someone. So it’s certainly interesting that they replaced one of the more blatant ‘he has a crush on her’ scenes with him outright visiting her cafe and not having any real reaction to seeing her again, and caring more about Anteiku in general.

It’s also worth pointing out that, even if they kept the little exchange between them earlier in the Cochlea arc 1:1 with the manga, it comes across even more as a sign of how awkward and stiff their relationship it than it already did in the manga. It’s always stood out to me a lot, even in the manga, that meeting Touka again face to face and her talking to him did absolutely nothing to sway him from his whole suicidal plan, whereas him just having a chat with a hallucination of Hide caused him to break down into tears and completely reevaluate how he values his own life. I just wanna point that out, lol.

So I’m honestly not sure how the anime will handle things with them. In general, I think the pacing of their relationship would be even more rushed than it was in the manga, at least if they keep all of their big moments. Having all of the stuff that happened with them in the manga take place over like one or two episodes of the anime would be, uh . . . really awkward, to say the least. But it’d also obviously disappoint everyone if they cut a lot of it out.

It’s also hard to tell exactly how they’d even execute some parts of it, particularly since the main reason they ended up having sex in the manga was because of the whole deal with Mutsuki attacking them and burning down the cafe, but since it looks like that sort of thing probably won’t happen in the anime at this point with how they’re handling him, I dunno how they’d set it up.

But to be completely honest, if they can at least keep handling Mutsuki well, I would actually be largely OK with the anime still having Kaneki and Touka hook up. I’ll probably talk in more depth about it later, but a big reason why I disliked it so much in the manga was just because it happened at the exact same time that Ishida decided to throw Mutsuki under a thousand buses in a row, and it was just miserable to sit through.

So yeah that’s around about it for this episode. I’m cautiously optimistic to see how they handle the rest of the season. At the very least, it looks like the next episode will be much more relaxed and slow and character-focused than the last few, so that’ll be nice.

#murasaki rambles #tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul :re #the anime scripwriter to Ishida: 'Mutsuki is my child now and you can't hurt him anymore'#who would have thought that I'd keep having so much to say about this anime

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recentanimenews · 3 years

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Meet the Hosts of Crunchyroll's New Crunchycast Podcast!

Today marks the launch of Crunchyroll's new video podcast, Crunchycast, a bi-weekly show dedicated to discussing everything anime, from current events to whether people still follow the so-called "3-episode rule" and beyond. You can check out Crunchycast right here on Crunchyroll, as well as on YouTube and anywhere else you get podcasts.

The first episode, GIVE ME MY ANIME FILMS, is now live with a look at how the influx of anime films in theaters in English has changed the game, both for accessibility and the industry at large.

youtube

New episodes will debut every other Monday with hosts Tim Lyu, Cristal Marie, and Curtis Richardson, so we thought we'd take a moment to introduce the folks behind the show.

Tim Lyu

Twitter

Tell us a little bit about your experience with anime!

So I started watching anime as early as I can remember, since I was born in Korea I just naturally had easy access to anime on TV… Watched stuff like Shin-chan, Inuyasha, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Keroro… All the good stuff… And as kind of a peak moment... I ended up getting this job at Crunchyroll so I guess that's a pretty good experience with anime if I say so myself.

What are some of your favorite series or movies?

So here are SOME of my favorite series… One Piece is an easy one; Devilman, Kaiji, Samurai Champloo, Berserk REST IN PEACE MIURA… Favorite movie is Akira easily hands down and I have more but the a recent film that pops up into my mind is Sword of the Stranger… OH and Paprika!

What are you into outside of anime?

Stuff I'm into outside of anime… Reading too much manga, playing games, listening to music, currently listening to a lot of oldie Funk and Disco, and I’m back into making fruit & vegetable juices.

What's the least interesting thing about you? Give us the opposite of a Fun Fact! Bad Facts Only.

Ummm… The least interesting thing about me… I think it’s the fact… Not even sure if this is interesting or not BUT I haven’t shaved my face fully in like 7 plus years. I’ve trimmed it of course but like this lil facial hair thing I got going on? It’s been going strong for almost 10 years… Yeah… I would say that is not interesting at all… Maybe it is… Maybe it is interesting that I’m lazy as hell...

Cristal Marie

Instagram

Twitter

Tell us a little bit about your experience with anime!

I consider myself an anime superfan to the point that I launched the first anime convention in my native country. I published an indie manga, wrote a song called Anime Girl, and I talk about anime on several YouTube channels in both English and Spanish! Everything from "the history of anime in Latin America" to "the evolution of Fanservice" and deep dives on Sailor Moon. I am fascinated by this storytelling medium and the impact it's had on my life, plus all the amazing people I got to connect with because of it… I just want to share more about it with the world and turn everyone on to their next favorite anime!

What are some of your favorite series or movies?

My favorites are Demon Slayer, Code Geass, Attack On Titan, Food Wars, Kamisama Kiss, Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon (all versions), and Saint Seiya. Favorite films include Tokyo Godfathers, Memories by Katsuhiro Otomo, Masaaki Yuasa’s Ride Your Wave, and Studio Ghibli’s adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle.

What are you into outside of anime?

Making music, performing, playing open-world action-RPG games, watching Chinese animation (donghua), K-Dramas and C-Dramas, reading dark fantasy books, all kinds of BL media, spending way too much money on VTubers, and obsessing over all the food I don’t know how to cook.

What's the least interesting thing about you? Give us the opposite of a Fun Fact! Bad Facts Only.

I sneeze like a truck. I won’t transport you to another world though.

Curtis Richardson

Instagram

Twitter

Tell us a little bit about your experience with anime!

I’ve been watching anime since before I knew what anime was ...or at least since before my Dad knew. He introduced me to anime via Speed Racer, which he thought was just a funny cartoon. Little did he know this would be the catalyst that got me to watch shows about a transforming dragon maid into my 20s. From there, anime inspiration has leaked into my work on all fronts, from making my friends solve hypothetical anime scenarios in videos, to stylizing my own videos after manga panels.

What are some of your favorite series or movies?

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Kuroko's Basketball, Chainsaw Man (manga), Haikyuu!!, A Silent Voice and Cowboy Bebop, to name a few.

What are you into outside of anime?

Honestly, I had to really think about this one, because most of the stuff I do is anime-adjacent, which I wasn't expecting to realize about myself. That aside, I make YouTube videos on a few other channels, such as mine (CurtRichy) where I talk about my regrettable opinions and stories, as well as Recreyo where my friends and I play something similar to an extremely light version of DnD.

What's the least interesting thing about you? Give us the opposite of a Fun Fact! Bad Facts Only.

From Ohio, and I'm $20,000 in debt :)

You can listen to the chaos that ensues with these three in the (virtual) booth every other week on Crunchycast!

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. You can read his comics at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox.

By: Joseph Luster

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years

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The Day Of The Doctor - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

50 years, huh? Extraordinary.

Going into The Day Of The Doctor, I was already lowering my expectations. Not just because Steven Moffat was writing it, but also because multi-Doctor anniversary specials are generally never very good. Once you get past the novelty of Doctors meeting each other, you quickly realise that the stories are often weaker than a nun’s piss. While The Day Of The Doctor does fare slightly better than previous multi-Doctor stories, there are still a ton of problems with it.

Let’s start with the Doctors themselves. I was a little bit cross that there were no classic Doctors coming back (and no, the Curator doesn’t count). I wouldn’t have minded except apparently Moffat never even asked any of them. Some fans have given the excuse that you can’t use the original actors because they’re not as young as they were, which caused me to scoff and roll my eyes. Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee were both considerably older when they returned to play their respective Doctors in The Five Doctors over a decade after they left the role, but nobody batted an eyelid. It was just really cool to see them again. There’s no reason why you couldn’t have brought the classic Doctors back. Okay Tom Baker and Colin Baker have both put on a considerable amount of weight since the 70s and 80s, and neither Peter Davison nor Sylvester McCoy are as young and spry as they used to be, but once they’ve got the costumes on, nobody’s going to care about that. Ever heard of suspension of disbelief?

So the Doctors we end up getting are Eleven, Ten and Eight And A Half, aka the War Doctor. (The Ninth Doctor was originally intended to appear, but Christopher Eccleston turned it down, hence the creation of an all new Doctor. Why Moffat couldn’t have just used Paul McGann, I don’t know). It’s about what you’d expect. Three Doctors coming together and criticising each other’s attitudes and tastes in clothing, and admittedly it’s fun for about five minutes before you start getting bored and want Moffat to get the fuck on with it. I think I’ve mentioned numerous times now how annoying I find Matt Smith to be, so i don’t think I’d need comment on that further. While I don’t like Ten as much as everyone else does, it is good to see David Tennant again after all this time. It’s like he’s never been away. He’s got that same boundless energy and enthusiasm that you can’t help but find endearing. This story does however play at odds with where Ten is in his story. Remember for Ten this takes place between The Waters Of Mars and The End Of Time Part 1, where Ten is running from his own impeding death. Surely seeing his future self would affect him somewhat, right? Perhaps that was what all that ‘some new man goes sauntering away’ stuff in The End Of Time with Wilf was about.

As for the War Doctor... I must confess I’m slightly torn. I’ve mentioned before how I really don’t like the idea of a War Doctor that Eleven can conveniently blame so that he can stay as the pure saint with the unsullied past because it just simplifies the character to an insulting degree. And it’s funny because if you stop to think about it, outside of the big decision he has to make with the Moment, the War Doctor doesn’t actually have a character. We never really learn anything significant about him or what really differentiates him from his other incarnations. And yet I can’t help but find myself really liking the War Doctor. And I think that’s for two reasons. One is because of the late, great John Hurt. He gives an extremely good performance and he’s the one that keeps you engrossed in the character even when the writing doesn’t. And the second is that... Look, I have quite a few issues with New Who, and one of them is the more manic interpretations of the Doctor. And yes I know the Doctor has always been an eccentric, but it feels as though New Who have been pushing it to its absolute limit and beyond, to the point where we’ve now got Matt Smith’s Doctor who is just the most obnoxious character I’ve ever come across (in fact there’s a scene where the War Doctor pretty much sums up all my problems with Eleven by asking him “why are you so ashamed of being a grownup?”). And I recognise this is more of a personal taste issue. If you like that kind of manic Doctor, more power to you. I honestly don’t mind it in small doses. The thing is I grew up with the classic series (I used to watch them on old VHS tapes when I was a kid) and while I recognise the War Doctor isn’t very well written and that the reasons for his inclusion are incredibly stupid, I can’t help but instinctively be drawn to that kind of witty, reserved Doctor who can be a bit serious at times, but his hearts are always in the right place. That kind of Doctor just resonates with me more somehow and it’s a kind of Doctor that I really wish we could see more of in New Who.

Plot-wise, it’s all a bit so-so. Let’s start with the B story. Out of all the monsters Moffat could have picked to bring back for the 50th anniversary, why in God’s name did he pick the Zygons? I know classic series fans really like the Zygons, but for the life of me I can’t see why. They’ve only ever appeared in one story, Terror Of The Zygons, which, lets be honest, wasn’t really very good. Yes I know David Tennant loves the Zygons and I’m sure he was pleased as punch to get to work with them, but for the 50th anniversary? Are you fucking joking?

For the benefit of @captainivyb and others who are unfamiliar with the classic series, here is what the original Zygons looked like:

And now here are the new and improved Zygons:

It’s funny, isn’t it? State of the art special effects and a slightly bigger budget, and yet somehow the new Zygons look just as shit as they did back in 1975. I’m going to choose to believe that these new Zygons look deliberately shit so that they could pay tribute to the rubber latex monsters of Who’s past because if I have to accept the possibility that the New Who team honestly thought these new designs were good, I may have to sit in the corner and have a little cry.

I do like the idea of the Zygons hiding inside paintings. Wouldn’t it have been cool if maybe the Doctors went inside the paintings and had a bit of a gander? But no. Instead we get the really bizarre twist that the Zygons, a race of shapeshifting aliens, destroyed a bunch of statues and ground them into dust so they could hide underneath large sheets when UNIT arrives. Yeah, it’s a bit hard to be scared of monsters that have the same mindset as a child who think they’re invisible just by covering their eyes.

And why are the Zygons inside the paintings? Because they want to invade the Earth. Why they don’t just invade medieval Earth, I don’t know. Surely that would be easier than invading present day Earth. Less guns and nuclear bombs for one thing. Elizabeth the First (or at least a version of her that has been Pompadoured into the sassy, flirty woman that exists in all of Moffat’s stories) says that the Zygons are used to a certain level of comfort, but that’s bollocks, isn’t it? What could the super advanced Zygons with their biotechnology possibly want from present day Earth? It can’t be the Black Archive. How would they even know it exists before taking Kate Stewart’s memories? Do they want to borrow our Wi-Fi or something?

Cut to present day Earth and there is a genuinely good moment where Kate stands toe to toe with the Zygons and threatens to destroy the whole of London to prevent them from using the Black Archive. Jenna Redgrave gives a great performance here, channelling the Brigadier very effectively. It’s such a shame Moffat doesn’t do more with her character. (You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned Osgood yet... Well spotted). Then the Doctors show up to chastise Kate for her actions, using their own experience in the Time War to explain why before using the memory eraser thingy to make everyone forget whether they’re human or Zygon, forcing both sides to form a peace treaty. Yeah, because evil aliens hellbent on taking over the world are bound to stick to that once they get their memories back. (Also there’s a major continuity blunder here. Earlier we see a Zygon attack Osgood and assume her form, stealing her asthma pump. Osgood manages to escape and steal the asthma pump back. But at the end, Zygon-Osgood gives the asthma pump back. Huh?).

All of this is meant to cack-handidly tie into the Time War storyline and the Moment, which admittedly is slightly better. But first... is that it? Is that the Time War? Remember all the references that were made in the RTD era? The Jaws of the Nightmare Child. The Could Have Been King and his Army of Never Weres. People trapped in time loops, forced to relive their own deaths over and over again for all eternity. What do we end up getting? Some spaceships, a few lasers and explosions, and some screaming civilians. The Last Great Time War. The war to end all wars... and this is the best they could come up with? Sigh. I guess some things are best left to the imagination.

Also I could have done without Rose. Well... except she’s not Rose. She’s the Bad Wolf. Well... except she’s not the Bad Wolf neither. She’s the same Moffat female we’ve seen millions of times before (Has Moffat only ever met one woman is his life? That’s the only explanation I can think of for why all his female characters sound and behave the fucking same). Billie Piper does an okay job with the material she’s been given, but really, you could have picked anyone to play the Moment. Billie Piper is really only there for fanservice. (Moffat reportedly did not want to bring the Rose character back because he felt her story was wrapped up and he didn’t want to add anything to RTD’s arc. I want you to remember this people. It’ll become relevant later on).

The Day Of The Doctor is really about the redemption of the War Doctor. Him standing at the brink, prepared to make a terrible choice and is shown the consequences of his choice, whilst his future selves learn to accept and finally come to terms with the horrible decision they made. This aspect at least is done reasonably well. I liked the scene with the sonic screwdrivers and the ‘same software, different case’ metaphor. And by far the most powerful scene is when Ten and Eleven arrive to help the War Doctor push the button. It was incredibly moving and actually made me really emotional because it shows the Doctor at his core. It’s something I’ve been saying for years. He’s not a soldier or a hero or a warrior. He’s just some guy. To make the decision to destroy his own species in order to save the rest of the universe would be incredibly traumatising even for a trained soldier. For a simple traveller like the Doctor, it’s practically unbearable. So to soften the blow by allowing his future selves to come along and help him press the button so he doesn’t have to suffer alone is extremely touching. Plus the War Doctor is now reassured by the fact his future selves will do everything in their power to make things right and not allow others to make the same terrible choice.

...

How does Moffat fuck it up?

Oh yeah. You knew it was going to happen. Moffat is so insecure and so determined to trick his audience that he’s prepared to butcher perfectly decent stories in order to shove in some bullshit twist. And this is no exception. Rather than allow The Day of The Doctor to end on a sombre, but powerful note, Moffat decides to do the unthinkable and takes a great big shit all over it. Thanks to an intervention from Clara (ugh), the Doctor changes his mind and decides to use a stasis cube to trap Gallifrey inside a pocket universe, causing the Daleks to destroy themselves in their own crossfire, saving the Time Lords and everyone gets a happy little ending. Now look, I’m not necessarily angry that the Time Lords have been brought back from the dead. I’ve suspected the whole last of the Time Lords thing wasn’t going to be permanent since way back in 2005. What I am angry about is the insulting way in which Moffat does it. Remember when Moffat said he didn’t want to add to RTD’s arc? Well he seems more than happy to undo it completely just because it doesn’t fit with his vision of who the Doctor is. A vision that is utterly warped. Moffat has deluded himself into thinking the Doctor is this all powerful saint that can do no wrong and would never dream of doing something like destroy his own race, even though the show itself completely contradicts that. The Doctor has made morally dubious choices before. The Doctor has resorted to violence before. Okay he’ll always try to find a diplomatic and peaceful solution when he can, but when push comes to shove, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. The Time War is just the most extreme example of that. Yes it’s a horrible choice, but what’s the alternative? Letting the whole of time and space burn? As Eleven himself said, it wasn’t possible to get it right. And the psychological ripple effects of this choice makes the Doctor a far more interesting character. By erasing all of this, all of that complexity and character development as a result goes with it. Moffat tries to cover himself by saying that none of the past Doctors will remember this because of Moffat logic, but that just makes it worse because now Nine and Ten are suffering from PTSD and psychological trauma for no reason.

What The Day Of The Doctor proves without a shadow of a doubt is that Steven Moffat doesn’t in any way understand the show he claims to be a fan of. And if you need further proof of that, in the final monologue where we see Matt Smith standing in front of a really bad photoshopped ensemble of previous Doctors, the Doctor talks about how he dreams about going home. That has got to be the most unDoctorly thing I’ve ever heard.

War Doctor: “If I grow to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed.”

Oh go fuck yourself Moffat!

#the day of the doctor #steven moffat #doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #tenth doctor #david tennant #war doctor #john hurt #clara oswald #jenna coleman #daleks #zygons #time lords #bbc #review #spoilers

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greed-the-dorkalicious · 7 years

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What is your rank of the Jojo OPs?

Oooooh, that’s tough. It’s hard to rank them because Jojo openings are kind of different from your standard “song by some popular band set to formulaic generic cool anime shots”, so like, music-wise I like Bloody Stream but Sono Chi no Kioku is cooler as an opening for example... How about instead of ranking them from best to worst, I’ll critique them all instead! I’ll put it under a cut because this gets long.

Sono Chi no Sadame

Music: ★★★★☆ - It’s really good, and Tommy’s singing is always great because you can always tell he’s having lots of fun. That being said, it’s a little bit of an acquired taste. If someone who normally listens to pop music put on Sono Chi no Sadame in front of someone who doesn’t know Jojo, that other person would probably be very confused and might not like it. (As a side note, depending on my mood I sometimes prefer the metal version from the anthology CDs, but they’re both so good...)

Animation: ★★★☆☆ - It’s pretty cool, and I love the use of manga panels especially the split second where you can see Jolyne. It’s very well synced with the music, like the part where they shoot Dio? Holy shit dude... I also like the part where Dio walks up the wall. That being said, the stage feels a little cramped, and since this was the first of the 3D Jojo openings it’s not quite as polished as the others. I feel like the models look a little weird at times, and I’m not so fond of the shade of teal used for Jonathan near the end...

Jojolity (to borrow the term from EoH): ★★★★★ I would have honestly ranked this one a little lower, but I mean, come on. It’s Sono Chi no Sadame. It’s iconic! While the lyrics don’t have as many direct references to the series as some of the other openings, I like the frequent references to the Joestar legacy (both in the lyrics and at the beginning of the animation). And as I mentioned, Tommy’s singing is so fun it’s infectious. Plus this opening deserves a whole extra star just for the iconic “JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOJO!”

Bloody Stream

Music: ★★★★☆ - This is definitely one of my favorite Jojo openings, but again, it’s a little weird compared to most anime music. It’s not as energetic as Sono Chi no Sadame, and the lyrics aren’t all that imo. The bridge (or whatever, you know the “kyoumei suru / unmei no hamon / kokoro ni) part is kind of weird tbh. But still, I really like this one.

Animation: ★★★★★ - I absolutely love the visuals on this one. I love the Battle Tendency aesthetic in general, and this opening practically oozes that aesthetic. The way they combined 2D and 3D is really cool, and I love the use of color, patterns, and silhouettes. The typography is really cool too! I love that while it does manage to incorporate some story elements like the other openings, it’s mostly at the end, and overall it’s a lot more abstract and focused on the main characters as individuals. I also really love the beginning, with Joseph kind of walking onto the scene and getting ready to show off, like it’s his turn now! Welcome to part 2! However, with all this being said, why the thing with Lisa Lisa... why. I’m so tired of Jojo fanservice moms.

Jojolity: ★★★★☆ - This is a great opening that, while certainly different from the others and not as connected with the series as a whole, couldn’t suit part 2 better. It’s not just another Jojo opening, you watch this one and you KNOW it’s Battle Tendency. There’s a lot of fitting use of patterns and motifs in the animation- stars and the manga’s “JOJO” for Joseph, plus the brief foreshadowing of Hermit Purple, then for Lisa Lisa we’ve got some swirls and ripples, and Caesar has the Zeppeli family checkerboard/harlequin pattern. And of course, the blood bubble, the bandana, and the scream at the end are fantastic(ly painful).

Stand Proud

Music: ★★☆☆☆ - It’s good, but it doesn’t really stand out among the other Jojo songs. It’s a lot more generic sort of sound, like a normal anime opening. Even as a song on its own, I don’t think it’s especially noteworthy. Maybe that’s just personal taste though. That being said, I like the lyrics a lot! And I don’t know if everyone realizes this in English, but the “alright now, alright now, alright now” part is pronounced in Japanese like “ora now, ora now, ora now”, so it’s kind of a neat pun, even if I feel like it sounds better when it’s pronounced closer to English. (You’ll notice the “ora” a lot more if you listen to that one clip of Daisuke Ono singing it.)

Animation: ★★★★★ - This is the third of the CGI openings, and the experience shows. The models are a lot smoother and nicer looking than the first two openings, imo. The camera angles are pretty cool, and it manages to have a good blend of overall story scenes with more character-focused, “cool factor” type visuals. The colors are nice, the space theme is really cool, and my favorite part is the bit where Jotaro’s kneeling at the bottom of a sort of Joestar family tree.

Jojolity: ★★★★★ - While this is not my personal favorite opening, the animation and the song do a fantastic job of living up to the series. Part 3 imo is sort of the “big finale” of Jojo (even if it’s only the third of eight parts, it’s one of if not the most popular, and sort of the culmination of the Joestars vs. Dio rivalry), and Stand Proud- both in animation and music- is suitably badass, as well as connected to Jojo as a whole. There’s a lot of references to the Joestar legacy, both in the lyrics and a lot of visuals that literally show past Joestars and lead up to Jotaro taking his place in the spotlight and carrying on the family destiny. There’s also some pretty cool references to manga art.

Sono Chi no Kioku

Music: ★★★★★ - There’s really no term to describe it other than “grand”. It’s almost orchestral or like an opera, very dramatic and cinematic in a way, but still has a rock style to it as well. The use of a heartbeat-like sound at the beginning is cool. The lyrics are great, and I love that not only is it sung by the singers of the previous three openings, but if you listen to the full version, in the bridge they all make references to their respective openings (”The destiny of light and darkness” “the swirling history is bloody” “an inheritance of undying pride”). And of course, my favorite part is where they yell “STAAAAAAAAAR PLATINUMMMM!”

Animation: ★★★★★ - I don’t have too much to say about this one, since it’s pretty much the same quality as Stand Proud, but it’s also full of little blink-and-you-miss-them details and foreshadowing; You can actually briefly see stylized examples of how every character dies, and if you watch very, very carefully during the shot with Jotaro frozen in time, the finger on his right hand twitches. I like the bit on the stairs with the Egyptian god silhouettes, and the broken clock motif is also really cool, while at the same time it ties in with the space theme of Stand Proud.

Jojolity: ★★★★★★★ - This, to me, is the ultimate Jojo opening. It’s so dramatic, so part 3, so very Jojo, and in a lot of ways it really is the culmination of everything that came before it. The animation and the music are both fantastic. Then on top of all that we have the unforgettable “ZA WARUDO” edition, which to this day is absolutely the coolest thing I have ever seen any anime opening do, by far. Sono Chi no Kioku is absolutely perfect for the end of part 3 and does a great job of embodying “This is it, everything has been leading up to this, this is the final resolution of 100 years of Dio tormenting the Joestars, this is where it all goes down.” I love this opening so much and I don’t know if any anime opening will ever live up to it, for me.

Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town

Music: ★★★★☆ - Dude, this one gets stuck in my head SO easily. It’s a lot of fun.

Animation: ★★★☆☆ - It’s really unimpressive after the amazing CGI openings, and doesn’t even have as much movement as most anime openings. But the colors are really fun, and it definitely shows of Morioh, with scenery from all over town as well as montages of Morioh’s residents.

Jojolity: ★★★☆☆ - It’s just pretty disappointing compared to the first four openings. It doesn’t have nearly the same level of dramatic action, nor as many references to the actual story. It’s much more mellow. Overall, it feels less like a story about Jojo, and more like a random dance party. However, one might argue that that’s perfect for part 4; with no more vampires and a protagonist who wasn’t raised as a Joestar, part 4 has much less to do with Jojo overall than the previous three parts, and is a lot more slice-of-life, so a Morioh dance party makes sense. I’ll also say that I do genuinely like Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town, and both the music and the animation remind me a lot of Bloody Stream. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but either way, I feel like it’s a great homage to the fact that Josuke is Joseph’s son.

Chase

Music: ★☆☆☆☆ - While I like the song itself decently enough, it’s even more generic than Stand Proud, and the only direct references to the series in the lyrics are the use of the word “arrow” in two lines. Also, the singer doesn’t sound especially passionate, and holy shit dude take a cough drop. You’re killing me here. I’d actually like this song if I could stand the singing at all.

Animation: ★★★☆☆ - It’s much more drab than Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town, but it does have a lot more action and movement to it, and more references to the story. I like the Killer Queen emblem thing, too. I feel like at times it’s not very well synced with the lyrics. However, Reimi is in it, so there’s that. I love you Reimi

Jojolity: ★★☆☆☆ - It just doesn’t feel like a Jojo opening. Jojo should be weird, fun, colorful, fashionable, and Chase just... isn’t. It’s dull. It’s generic. Where are the funky trumpets? Fun patterns and colors? Keywords like “stand” or “destiny” dropped into the lyrics? There are none. If you replaced the characters, you could use this as an opening for Death Note. A Jojo opening should be very unique to Jojo. That being said, at least the darkness of both the music and the animation are very fitting for the horror of knowing that Kira is out there somewhere, and it’s cool how they throw in things like the fingernails or the Killer Queen emblem as if he’s watching everyone.

Great Days

Music: ★★★★☆ - Now THIS is a Jojo opening. It’s no Sono Chi no Sadame, but it’s fun, hopeful, and has plenty of references to the story. Not to mention that right of the bat, it incorporates the main theme from the OST, which is awesome.

Animation: ★★★★☆ - Again, it doesn’t live up to the CGI openings, but it’s got some cool angles and such. There’s a nice balance of plot-appropriate darkness and Jojo fashion aesthetic, and it shows off the town and also includes story elements. There’s some cool emblems and poses, too. Not to mention that Reimi is right at the forefront of this opening! I love you Reimi

Jojolity: ★★★★☆ - Like Sono Chi no Kioku, this one definitely has a sort of “penultimate” feeling, especially due to the use of the main theme. It’s really fun and suited to both the part 4 finale and Jojo as a whole, and the pointing pose is straight out of the manga. And then of course we’ve got the “Bites the Dust” version, like The World and Sono Chi no Kioku. Great Days is perfect for the end of part 4.

#nerdy-nonbinary #Asks

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