#since i just watched an isekai anime i got inspired

[tavshortfortavern]

Isekai!Tav Plot Bunnies

Origins of Humans.

Earth being a canon place in Forgotten Realms lore as another plane birthed a lot of ideas. I thought it was really convenient for any isekai plots but now it makes me wonder of the world. Specifically humans on Earth and those in Faerun. Cuz how did that happen. In DND humans do not have clear origins or a 'creator deity'' like dwarves or elves. Storytelling-wise, this is up to the DM and writers but that means my plot bunnies could be true. Humans came from Earth. Earth could be the origins of humanity.

I did some reading and found that mages from this place called the Imaskari Empire opened portal to this 'other world' and kidnapped humans to be slaves. The places these kidnapped humans came from were described to be similar to those on earth like Egypt or Mesopotamia. The mages closed those portals and put wards to prevent future gates for a very long time (Gates from Earth to Toril used to be common thats why its called Forgotten Realms) Not forever or permanently. Just a long time. It would make sense for those wards to wane after so much time and that's how a Tav would stumble into Faerun from modern earth.

I'm inclined to think Earth is the original home as Faerun has no clue how humans came about, even humans but on our world we have plenty of creation stories and myths, a lot of which mimics the other. Granted even we can't all agree which is the one true origin but we we have them. It also makes sense for humans, who are known for traveling and being able to thrive wherever they wish (even when its not ideal or possible) to be in different worlds. They're just so short-lived they wouldn't remember ancient times.

So Tav ends up in Faerun and becomes an adventurer for a time before getting tadpoled. They keep being from another world a secret. Through the course of the adventure they learn of the wards preventing gates being opened to their world, which is an issue if they want to head back. The more they delve into this they slowly piece together ancient, ancient history and realize the truth. This might be a chance to involve earth dieties. There are so many dieties and pantheon on earth compared to Fearun. Someone pointed out how many goddesses of magic there are and it hasn't left me. So maybe earth had magic at some point of its gone now?

There might also be how different Tav's soul could be. Someone else mentioned in Faerun, souls are created by the gods so an isekai Tav soul could be different being from earth. It could come with its advantages but drawbacks. Such as resurrection and dying. But the gods on Faerun might not be able to do anything with that Tav either, escaping a lot of divine retribution if they decide to meddle and be rude. Maybe Ao doesn't want them here bc they would disrupt everything but can't do anything since they're soul is not from here and what if the earth gods have a problem? They're kinda outnumbered.

This is just me but I have fun thinking of Tav not just from earth but a more futuristic version. I'm a fan of medieval fantasy meets scifi. Being a world without magic means humanity is focused on advancing technology and it shows. A normal isekai Tav is already chaffing at the lack of modern comforts but a futuristic Tav is trying so hard not to make faces at this 'backwards' society.

Idk this has been stuck with me for a whole

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (06/10/24)

Reviews and thoughts under the cut

Forced Bonds by J. Bree (9/10)

I think this is my favorite of the series so far. The majority of this book was par for the course, but there were a few major things that really brought it to another level for me. One is the reveal about the main characters' bonds, which I'm very interested to see a resolution to, and another is the ending, which I never expected from this kind of series. I have my doubts that that development will actually hold, but it still took me by surprise!

Toward an Aesthetic of Reception by Hans Robert Jauss (5/10)

This is a literary theory book that is highly useful to some research I'm doing. It is also incredibly opaque and miserable to read. I feel like I retained about 40% of what I read, even if I did get some useful quotes and ideas.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White (8/10)

I went into this one with a certain idea of what it would be like, and I was completely blindsided. Despite being a fantasy classic from the mid 1900s, it was quite accessibly written and a good bit of the humor holds up. I think what I liked most about this version of Arthurian legend was its portrayal of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guenever (that's how her name is spelled in this book). White did a great job getting across the nuance of the conversation and not villainizing any of them, even if they did act horrendously stupid at some points. There are certainly things I did not like about this book, major ones being how White is so obviously a white English man and how Freud's theories must have still been popular when he was writing, but it was overall an enjoyable read and a very obvious inspiration for a lot of modern medieval and Arthurian fantasy.

Haikyuu!! Vol. 34 by Haruichi Furudate (8/10)

It's a bit tough for me to rate manga volumes since they go by so quickly, but I think I would be hard-pressed to find a Haikyuu!! volume I don't like. While I've watched the anime many, many times, I'm finally committing to finishing the story through the manga. This volume in particular was quite good, focused on a highly anticipated match. There were some moments that got a little repetitive, but I expect that's the point since part of this arc is the Karasuno team's frustration at being unable to break through.

Haikyuu!! Vol. 35 by Haruichi Furudate (9/10)

There was a bit of a shake-up in this volume, and I think it's a great one for showing how Hinata has developed over the course of the story. The fact that he's being targeted for receives to keep him out of the game instead of because he's shit at them is a huge amount of growth in the first place! I liked the problem-solving displayed by him and the rest of the team, and the Hinata/Kenma dynamic is really starting to take off. I kept this at a 9 instead of a 10 because while the ending got me excited, I don't see yet how it's supposed to disrupt Nekoma's strategy.

The Dark Secret by Tui T. Sutherland (86%)

Starflight's character development through this book is really quite good. He's always been a nervous worrier, and I think the way he moves through the plot allows him to come into his own and find courage without abandoning his intelligence and conscientiousness. A good balance is struck, giving him character growth that doesn't overshadow or completely change his core personality. Looking forward to finishing this book and reading the final one in this arc of the series!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (15%)

The first isekai? I have so much to say about this book, but it's just going to end up being five paragraphs of nonsense, so I'll just say this for now: Hank is an annoying hypocrite and perhaps the first isekai power fantasy character. Do with that what you will.

Haikyuu!! Vol. 36 by Haruichi Furudate (33%)

So far I'm really liking this volume, and I just got some backstory for Kuroo and Kenma! They're so cute as children! I honestly can't tell who's going to win this match. My preference, of course, is for Karasuno since they're the main characters, but Furudate does such an amazing job of making the reader root for both sides. I'll be working through these next few volumes quickly since I want to go see the new movie this week!

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (1%)

I've barely started this book, but I'm a little uncertain. I am not one for historical fiction usually, and I'm really only reading this for my book club. So far the main character seems a little too perfect to me; clever, driven, beautiful. I hope she becomes a more well-rounded character as the story progresses.

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

House Isekai: A "brief" Summary

TLDR: It is a Fire Emblem: Three Houses crossover with a bunch of different games/animes that spiralled into a coherent story, focusing on character interactions and action.

So throughout the og blog and this one, i've made several references of House Isekai, but never went too in depth of what it actually was.

That changes today, since I'm in the mood to write for it, and luckily, most of the things I write for are already part of this blog, so you'll have some understanding of who everyone is!

That being said, it dramatically helps if you've played/watched Fire Emblem: Three Houses, since 3H is the media that connects all of these series together.

AND I AM ETERNALLY PISSED ENGAGE WASN'T FIRST BECAUSE THAT WOULD'VE MADE THE CONCEPT SO MUCH EASIER TO WORK INTO

If you haven't, I have one meme to say to you.

As for the full story of this series inception, it's under the cut!

GENERAL OVERVIEW

For those unfamilliar with Three Houses, Byleth (the player) is chosen to become a professor for one of three classes, The Black Eagles, Blue Lions, and Golden Deer. Eventually, a war breaks out that pitches each country the classes are from against one another.

Your character had the power of God, Sothis, infused into you, and you were the deciding factor in the nation you chose winning the war.

A very important bit is that thanks to Sothis, Byleth was able to turn back time. Gameplay wise this just meant you could rewind a turn to play it out differently, and strangely enough, no story consequence came out of this. But we'll come back to this.

Before House Isekai, I had written several other AU's for 3H, Red vs Blue, Monster Hunter, Rune Factory 4, Warhammer 40,000, and most famously, a Child Byleth AU. While it was fun, and Child Byleth had a lot of things written for it, they didn't explode into their own universe.

House Isekai spawned because of anon asking what would happen if the Konosuba gang was in Three Houses, which brings us here!

The original House Isekai consisted of 8 groups from different series:

Konosuba

Overlord

Persona 3

Persona 4

Persona 5

School-Live!

Trails of Cold Steel

DOOM

The whole premise was that these groups dropped in out of nowhere, and it kept happening so often, that all the offworlders formed their own House and was a fourth class besides the Black Eagles, Golden Deers, and Blue Lions.

Byleth, alongside many colorful characters, became the staff of House Isekai.

It was mostly jokey/fun ideas of how these characters could interact the ones from 3H and each other, spawning other joke au's like Animal Crossing, Subnautica, ETC. This continued on about a year or so.

===

STORY

But then a lot of people were wondering how House Isekai would handle the timeskip. The original plan was to write that, but honestly it would've been an absolute curbstomp and a Golden Ending to the original 3H plot. However, I felt like that wasn't really fitting since it was intentionally impossible to get a happy ending for everyone.

But then, I got an idea.

Earlier before the crossover existed, I had written an evil Byleth storyline where he became the villain that the three nations had to fight. In that story, Byleth had rewinded time to go through all the routes in the game, and decided that becoming the evil was the only way to stop the wars.

That story ended with Byleth dying, and the three nations achieving peace.

It was here I thought, "why don't I expand on this even more?" And decided to make House Isekai part of that storyline, birthing House Isekai: Shadowbringers. (I was also playing FFXIV at the time, so to say I was inspired by it would be an understatement. I straight up stole a lot from FFXIV LMAO)

Now, instead of losing, Byleth accidentally won and doomed the entire world into a slow death. To fix his mistakes, he created "The Zanado Tower", and with the help of Sothis, reversed time to where even he would forget what happened. But this fucked up dramatically due to reversing time too much at this point, breaking reality, and what led to each group showing up.

Every group showed up one at a time with Byleth, and went to the endgame with him before time reset by itself, doing the whole process again but with another group. The only catch, is that Byleth remembered each loop.

With the final loop, every group showed up at once creating House Isekai and the "golden ending". Only for that Golden Ending to show signs that time was about to reset, which led to the discovery of the Zanado Tower.

Deciding to try again, Byleth and Sothis reset time manually while inside there, causing it to catastrophically malfunction. They then realized they were still there, and found out they had accidentally created another copy of Byleth, where events were playing out normally for him with no knowledge of any time loop beforehand.

To MASSIVELY gloss over the story, Shadowbringers concluded with both Byleth's dying in a duel to the death, and with the cycle broken, time began to flow normally, leaving House Isekai without their professor.

Using the tower, each group said farewell. There is no memory wipe, everyone keeps their knowledge of their time with House Isekai and went to continue their adventures at home.

Thus leading us to: House Isekai: A Realm Reborn, which is where the storyline is currently at.

Including cameos from the original House Isekai, it was now led by Byleth's Mother, and included:

Trails of Cold Steel III

Genshin Impact

Halo 3: ODST

Warhammer 40,000

and 3H Original Characters

This formed the new and current House Isekai.

Two years after Shadowbringers, Sitri calls for aid and Towa, Kazuma, Rean, and Aigis answer, with everyone else dropping out of nowhere similar to the old house.

The Main threat this story is remnants of 3H villains, and Separatists of the Empire nation (Black Eagles).

===

And that's it. As for actual content, while the character interactions were very fun, in my opinion, I needlessly rushed it, and the quality is not at all what I wanted the end result to be like it was in my head.

But if there's one thing I am proud of still, is taking the ungodly amount of characters and forming meaningful relationships with one another in a way that made sense for everyone, and still kept in character. The Character interactions were the best part of House Isekai.

Which brings me to the next topic!

THE FAN FAVORITE CHARACTERS

With a cast this big, there were bound to be the ones who were most famous and constantly asked for/in the most imagines.

In no particular order:

Sara Valestein, Towa Herschel, Rean Schwarzer (Trails of Cold Steel),

Aqua, Kazuma (Konosuba),

Akira Kurusu, Yu Narukami (Persona),

Megumi "Megu-nee" (School-Live!),

and Doomguy (DOOM), were the most famous.

Whether it be solely for their personalities, the way they interacted in-House/ with 3H characters, they were always a blast for me to write and everyone loved them.

Funnily enough, Aqua, who is the most annoying to me and everyone scored number one in a best girl poll, followed by Laura of Cold Steel, and Kasumi of Persona 5.

It was also thanks to House Isekai I introduced MANY people to the respective series, Cold Steel and School-Live! being the lesser knowns brought to the limelight.

I actually once overtook the 3H imagines tag with Megumi with her being recommended and that's the funniest thing in the world to me still.

Towa was the mascot of House Isekai, old and new, and given the chance, the mascot of Genshingorls.

===

AND NOW that's the """"""brief"""""" history of House Isekai covered, both in-lore and meta.

So, What do you guys think?

Feel free to request anything from House Isekai since this is my legacy, and I know some folks have been DYING for me to continue while I've been writing Genshin over here.

[chickycherrycola]

Okay, I have the same questions for you! How long have you been writing and what are some of your favorite tropes/storylines to write? Also, do you have a movie/show/book you’d consider a hidden gem or under-hyped fave??

Hello there Tower! 🎶 thanks for providing me with a wonderful distraction while I work from home today ehehehe *rubs my tiny fly hands together*

How long have I been writing:

Truly, kind of all my life? I've loved books, reading, and words since childhood - I was that quirky little kid who preferred going to the library over going to the park 😅 I wrote a LOT in high school and college, but I doubted myself too much to ever do anything with any of it. I never submitted short stories to publishing houses, never posted any of my fanfics online as a result. I took a long break from writing after graduating college and only recently got back into it, about... late 2021, I want to say? I re-read some fave old Soul Eater fanfics and got inspired to take up the metaphorical pen again, and I'm so glad I did. Now it feels like all I do with my life is write and I wouldn't have it any other way tbh!

Favorite Tropes/Storylines To Write:

Boy oh boy, where to even begin? I love romance, comedy, and the wonderful intersection of the two in the form of the ROMANTIC COMEDY, which im sure is pretty obvious given the kinds of fics I tend to post. I write as a form of escape from reality and use humor to cope and process big feelings, so writing rom-coms with a lot of heart and mature themes at their core is my jam.

In terms of tropes - my faves are the following, in no particular order: Friends to Lovers, Idiots In Love, Boy Falls First, Found Family (im actually a HUGE SLUT for this one and want to write it so badly!), Second Chance Romance, Animal Companions (i utilize this one a TON in my original fiction), Cozy Fantasy and/or stories that seamlessly weave magic or supernatural elements into the "real" world... and lastly, not really a trope, but Character Driven Stories are the GOAT.

Also... I just really love writing smut. PWP one-shots are my guilty pleasure. >:3

Hidden Gems/Underhyped Faves:

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Books (though two of these are comics technically):

-SAGA by Brian K Vaughan & Fiona Staples: adult graphic novel space epic series full of memorable characters and absolutely gorgeous art that tackles a lot of tough stuff and has made me feel the full spectrum of human emotion

-The Tea Dragon Society by K. O'Neill: a wholesome, heartwarming all ages comic chocked full of pocket-sized dragons and the COZIEST fantasy vibes EVER

-The Locked Tomb series: idk if it counts as an underrated fave/hidden gem cause the book series has a pretty sizable and active fan base, but im recommending it anyway cause Harrowhark Nonagesimus is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction, and if you like stories that explore both romantic and platonic partnership dynamics, you should give it a read if you haven't already!!

Shows/Anime:

-D. Gray-Man: shounen anime set in Victorian England about exorcists and featuring the most Cinnamon Roll Main Character in the Universe who I will always love with my whole heart, Allen Walker

-Re:Creators: a reverse isekai in which fictional characters are suddenly pulled from their universes into the real world and tackles the question of what fiction/art mean to us humans, one of my favorite shows of ALL TIME with excellent music composed by Hiroyuki Sawano

-Baccano!: a sort of steampunk/fantasy caper involving alchemists, immortals, outlaws, gangsters, an immortality elixir, and a murder mystery on a train, told in a non-linear format that really puzzles the brain on the first couple of watches

-Witch Hat Atelier: is technically a manga but is getting an anime soon! A series about a young girl who goes to magic school to become a witch, featuring an excellent magic system and gorgeous art

Movies:

-this answer is already soooooo long so ill just recommend my favorite movie of all time, PACIFIC RIM, which if you haven't seen you should WATCH RIGHT AWAY because it has the partners trope you love! Its a 2013 sci-fi flick directed by Guillermo del Toro about kaijus invading Earth from outer space, and the giant, dual-piloted robots that humanity devises to fight back with, and was so revolutionary in its portrayal of its main female character that it created a whole new benchmark for assessing portrayal of women characters in fiction (The Mako Mori Test).

In conclusion - thanks for giving me an excuse to ramble on and on, and I do truly hope you enjoyed all this drivel! 🙏😁

[quickdeaths]

Spell out your url using characters you love from any media. then, tag as many people as there are letters in your url ( or however many you'd like ! ) inspired by the song titles dashboard game.

Q - Qiu Tong, Tamen de Gushi. Ngl, finding a character with a Q name was tough haha. Qiu Tong is a good choice tho, both for how big TdG was in my circles when it was at its peak, and the sad story of what happened to it. Free my girls!

U - Utena Tenjou, Revolutionary Girl Utena. Utena is too hard to watch to be my favorite anime, but I do think it's kind of the perfect anime, and I will truly never be free from taking inspiration from Utena herself when making characters.

I - Itto Arataki, Genshin Impact. My girlfriend played Genshin Impact and I was thinking about picking it up, but I wasn't totally sure, and then I saw this guy. History made.

C - Claire François, I'm In Love With The Villainess. I love the villainess genre, absolutely oversaturated with slop though it may be. This one is a fave, and what I like about Claire is that she has multiple arcs. So many examples of this genre use isekai or reincarnation explanations to sand off the rough edges, and while I think Claire is very sympathetic, the light novels show that she has to prove her good intentions and overcome her prejudices.

K - Kotori Minami, Love Live! She's not the strongest character, really, but I just like her a lot. Love Live! meant a lot to me when I was like, 21-22.

D - Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks. Gosh what a performance, huh? I was obsessed with this show in college, and the absolute weirdo energy brought to this character has never left my brain. I really gotta watch the new season.

E - Edelgard von Hresvelg, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. She's not my fave FE3H character, but I do like her a lot, and unfortunately the discourse around her is the clearest portrait I've ever seen of fandom misogyny. The double-standards, the flattening of motivations, the lack of credit or benefit of the doubt that male characters got easily, it's all there. Edelgard they could never make me hate you.

A - A2, NieR: Automata. This is a stand-in for her, 2B, and 9S, honestly. NieR: Automata is one of my all-time faves, with a story that I loved the whole way through. For me, they are "frequently bought together, do not separate them," but A2 is the only one whose name actually starts with a letter, so she gets the honor.

T - Tahani Al-Jamil, The Good Place. This is kind of another "ensemble" pick since it is hard to choose, although Tahani might be my favorite of the main four cast. I don't watch a ton of TV, but I honestly devoured this whole show in like... maybe three weeks? I love the characters, and I loved the story, and while The Office and Parks and Recreation never really hit for me, this definitely did. With Tahani specifically, it helps that I love Jameela Jamil.

H - Hanabi Yasuraoka, Scum's Wish. This is a hard manga to recommend, and Hanabi is a hard character to love, but it lined up for me at a time where I needed to read things about characters who weren't great people but still deserved the hope that the could be better. Fun fact, an article I wrote about my relationship to the anime for a website is, I believe, the first time I was ever paid for my writing.

S - Saeko Sawatari, How Do We Relationship? I could honestly talk about Sae forever. HDWR is maybe my favorite romance manga of all time, and Sae is relatable to me in ways I find affirming and representative, and also deeply uncomfortable. Sometimes I'll be reading normally, and then Sae will say something that feels like the kind of thing I'd write in a diary and then throw into the ocean strapped to fifty pound weights due to being too honest and vulnerable. I can't explain all the things that I see reflected back at myself from her, and honestly, I probably wouldn't want to. All I can say is that she's such a special character to me.

Tagged by: @more-than-a-princess

Tagging: Normally I would tag people, but I did just do a dash meme recently and also tags are like busted for some reason for me like what's up with that. If you want to do it, though, I think you should and you can say I tagged you and it'll be our secret.

[invizdable]

☕ the time has come, you are now obligated by the government to ramble about slayers, you have no choice

☕

Oh goddamn it Kateh, Okay you asked for this! you literally won’t get like HALF the shit I'm saying but here I go, you fucking ASKED for this.

Okay, I’m a baby to this fandom, I just got into this series as a way to cope during quarantine but fuck me, is it just... everything I WANT in a fantasy anime? Just fun adventure, no harem/isekai bullshit.Just good ole fantasy adventures with a bit of humor to spice it up.

So far I have only watched like 4 of the 5 main series, two of the novels and one OVA set and the movie but here are my takes.

It’s been a long ass time since I saw the first season and I DO remember it having a lot of fun shit but also I feel it really... took a while for the show to come together? Like I get it its about Lina just MEETING all these fuckers, but damn was some of the filler just... like ‘okay cool when are these characters going to actually start working as a team?” Which is just me being impatient my favorite fucking character wasn’t a mainstay yet. But yeah I can have shallow opinions fuck it.

Season 2 (Next) was the BEST one and I know that's not controversial but its when all the stuff REALLY did come together. Like all the characters really came into their own and the story was really starting to feel fun and like I was watching one of those funny dnd comedy podcasts but with anime and it felts sooo good.

Try (Season 3) I see people either ADORE or strongly dislike... but me I'm on the ADORE side. Like Its just a really fun and just as intense season! Like I really love Filia so much her development is SO fucking good, just mmm god she just went from pretty self-righteous and just blindly following her temples ways but immediately recounts that shit when she learns how those fuckers committed goddamn genocide. Seriously fuck Golden Dragons they suck.

As for characters? I fucking love all of them tho I do have some hot takes.

Love Lina... I get she’s the main character but at times I feel she’s a BIT bit bit overrated? I’m probably gonna be killed by this statement like I get its HER show, but shit man, sometimes you watch Naruto and your fave just happens to be Rock Lee. That being said she’s the perfect protagonist for this show! She’s selfish and awful and yet still somehow has a heart of gold under it all! Like ah man She’s one of the most fun protagonists for a show that seems like its geared for male audiences I’ve seen since like.. Soul Eater.

Gourry is just a good ole himbo, and I feel he has a lot more depth to him than the series gives him credit. They flanderize him by S4 and its really sad, like yeah the dude isn’t SMART but his backstory with his family basically ruining itself all to inherit a magic sword is really fucking sad. Also, he is the quintessential emotional support himbo for Lina. 

Zelgadis is the best character, don’t @ me. Just I love angsty bitches who are taken seriously but not TOO seriously, Like his backstory is fucked up and sad, but the show doesn’t shy away from showing he can be a fucking jackass, and poking fun at him. Also, he has a hella character design, I love ‘monstery’ looking people in general though and I tend to vibe with designs like that so :) yeah.

Amelia, after watching the show I fucking LOVE her, she’s extra and just doing her best and gets some great development but fuck if she wasn’t kinda fucking annoying in S1, like I get it was the point, she was a naive, sheltered princess who wanted to just fight for LOVE AND JUSTICE but had really black and white views on what that was but. God... I remember just getting so annoyed with her S1, By S2 though she is legit on of my favorite characters, she’s just the kinda character I vibe with, the seemingly airheaded ‘good girl’ in a cast of characters who are mostly selfish jaded bitches :).

Xellos is a fuckin bastard and I adore him, my hot take is he reminds me of Colin Robinson from What We Do in the Shadows and I legit would wanna hear him just try to get the cast to say ‘What's up Dog’ by constantly saying how he feels the situation needs more ‘updog’ Oh god also, just he legit evil and I KNOW he is a threat, but memeing on him is just too much fun. Like yes, he is a threat blah blah blah, haha he reminds me of the funny bald vampire man :). Season 4 nerfed his eyebrows... that was fucking evil.

Filia Oh gossssh I love her, she’s like a fucking dragon mom and Legit if I saw Slayers before I made some of my OCS she’d really be a big inspiration for Flann, Hell she still can be! Just I love female characters who are just a BIT awful but also still good people? Like I love her she is a dragon mom.

The rest of the cast is great I tend to like all the villains and I will spare you thoughts on S4 and 5 (haven’t finished them but so far :T I'm not loving them as much.) and shit about the OVAs.

GOD THANK YOU KATEH I AM SORRY YOUR GOING TO BE SO CONFUSED.

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Dino Watches Anime (Jan 13)

With the snow outside and cancellations everywhere, I have more time to kick back, relax, and not do anything. Seriously, playing out in the snow and being an absolute bum is my specialty.

Dropped

Darwin's Game 

It just seemed like Mirai Nikki but updated to smartphones instead of flip phones and with a new interface and system. Seriously, it’s like someone watched Mirai Nikki and went “I can remake this and rake in the money”. The animation wasn’t good (according to our local sakuga geek, there were less than 10 animators who worked on the 40 min premiere because of the inhumane conditions of the studio which adds to the yikes), the soundtrack was great (but I won’t watch a show just for the soundtrack/seiyuu cast), and overall, I felt like I didn’t want to put myself through a show like this.

Uta no Prince-sama

I couldn’t do it fam. I watched two episodes and nearly cried on the inside because it felt like Kiniro no Corda but with a new bland face with new bland characters. I never watched either of these fully. I tried to watch just for the seiyuu (*ahem* Miyuki Sawashiro), but imagine having your life hobbies made into an absolute joke by a character who can’t even read music and is in the composition department while her main song of choice is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and the ikemen around her and swooning over it and writing their own songs for her. The guys all have the same faces too! They’re triangle heads that can only be differentiated by colour palette. I’m telling the difference based on voices at this point. I don’t want the ikemen, but I would like people to be into my music too ya know! You may think that I’m dropping this anime purely out of spite for the story and characters, and you’re damn right I am. 

Seasonal Stuff

Pet

This is this close to being dropped, and I don’t mean for the strong BL vibes. It’s a little cringy but not that bad (I’ve watched a lot of cringe straight romance and to me it’s all the same). It just feels so poorly constructed right now. The universe just hangs by a thread with characters I feel ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for. Everything in this anime feels so cheap. I’m giving this one more week before I give it the axe.

Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita 

Okay, this anime is stupid, but we all went in knowing it was going to be very stupid. You’ve seen the screencaps. You’ve seen the cliches. Now get ready to have a pretentious science spin on it as if you haven’t seen these scenes a million times before elsewhere, and the characters (at least one of them) know it. The art... it’s present. I mean, character designs are giving the guys of Reddit what they want (especially with Sora Amamiya being really popular and singing the OP along with voicing the main character). Yuuma Uchida is also there. Nothing really worth noting here except “stay in school kids so you can become a pretentious science kid with no people skills!”

Dorohedoro

I might just watch this anime in place of “Pet” because this anime has a much brighter outlook and despite being CG genuinely looks better anyway. It’s the horror that I wanted to fill the void with (since Pet genuinely isn’t scary or innovative). Everything was pretty good with the first episode! I’m looking forward to seeing more!

From here on out, the rest of the seasonal list are the ones I look forward to the most! Get that head lizardman!

Runway de Waratte 

At first, this doesn’t seem like something that would come out of Shonen Weekly, but it inspires a good message about being who you want to be even with limitations if front of you. You have a girl too short to be considered a model and a guy who designs fashion without having the money to pursue it further. I know nothing about style, but I do know things about being short! Maybe that’s why I have such a soft spot for it...

ID:Invaded

This anime gets more interesting as we go along. I’m all into murder mysteries and things like that, and with the sci-fi mixed it, I checked to make sure I was up-to-date with this one. Each episode gives a new mystery with more details outline our jaded and imprisoned detective’s motives and backstory. I wasn’t sold on the character designs at first, but once you get over that hurdle, it’s all good. I like the psychological aspects of it too!

Kyokou Suiri 

Ever wish you had a female protagonist who was upfront about her romantic motives? Ever wanted to watch a show involving youkai? Here’s the show for you! Plus, her character design is so cute. Mamo sang the ED for this anime too. The animation is great, the story looks amazing (read ahead a few chapters in the manga), and this is one of my most highest anticipated anime for the season!

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

Here’s one of my favourite pilot episodes! This anime left such a strong impression on me that I went straight to my non-otaku friends going, “You’ve gotta see this guys”. The art style is consistent with the manga, and according to the not-so-quiet manga readers, we’re in for a really good anime. 

All the characters in this anime are also adorable and really simple-minded on the surface. Hanako-kun being a boy is a really funny twist on the local urban legend (I’m one of those kids who never dared to say “Bloody Mary” in the washroom so what can I say?)

Recently Completed

Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

Remember Aku no Hana? This is what happens when rotoscoping has a bit more budget. This anime was slow, a little cringy, but it felt really real. The voices felt real, the characters felt real, and the story felt... mostly real. I don’t regret watching this movie art style and all because I think it captures a bit of the exaggerations of being a teenager (rumours blow up like balloons)

Sennen Joyuu

Satoshi Kon really has a certain way of telling stories. I’ve watched Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, and Tokyo Godfathers, and while this didn’t have as strong of a punch as the latter, this film was still strong. It shows a story of a young maiden’s resilience, perseverance, and undying love... all things I can’t relate to... but it was good!

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

This show was a trip. You thought it was a fanservice anime until things got really heavy. This anime was funny, it made me feel things with the themes it took on, and it made me remember that the best girl doesn’t always have to win to be a good anime. The art was cute and sweet, the voice acting was so fricking funny (according to the cast, the improv wasn’t always included but the ones that were left along with the dialogue were pure gold), and the story was exceptional for an anime which seemed to have no base whatsoever. And plus, this had something a lot of anime don’t... A CONCLUSIVE ENDING. Give this anime a watch if you haven’t. It’s melodramatic comedic romantic teen drama at its finest.

Orange

Speaking of melodramatic romantic teen dramas, here’s another one that fits that bill! Minus the comedy, more suicide, and far less cohesive plot. Imagine throwing letters into the Bermuda Triangle and having your 16-year-old selves really reading those letters. I was wondering how they were going to explain sending their letters to the past, but they should’ve come up with better BS than that. Aside from really bad plot holes, this anime was alright. It was slow... really slow. I finished this whole 13 episodes plus the movie in about 2.5 hours after trimming the slow recaps. 

The art was alright. The story was slow, but near the end (excluding the last episode and the movie) it got really heavy. It hit close to home. I struggled with suicide for years, and I felt what this character felt. Certain lines of that dialogue just hit hard. It was depicted in a way that didn’t feel as romanticized. He wasn’t saved by just one person, his trauma didn’t go away just like that, it took a group of friends and planning to help him realize that there was more to life then just regrets.

Would I recommend this? I mean, it was recommended to me, but I’m not forcing this anime on anyone... not because of the themes but because it was darn boring and cliche 70% of the time.

Still Watching

Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha

Same things apply as previous entries

Hunter x Hunter (2011)

My brother expected me to finish this a while ago but I put it on the back-burner because the number of episodes seemed daunting. Everything else is good though.

Sousei no Onmyouji

I only watched the first episode.

Boku no Hero Academia Season Four

Same things apply as previous entries. It seems like the Overhaul arc will end in the next episode or two (depending on how much they milk this).

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

Groundhog Day but isekai. Seriously, this is a pretty big staple in terms of big isekai. Everyone’s fighting over who’s the best girl meanwhile Subaru is trying his best not to die every five minutes. Seriously, Subaru is a champ and what I’d want out of a Mary Sue isekai protagonist. Get em Subaru. Prove to me you’re not a car.

This will be me for the next few days because it’s getting colder where I am so watch me slip on the ice and die!

[medea10]

My Review of Given

*this exists* Huh? Fuck Isekai shit! GIMME SOME BL LIKE YESTERDAY! Yes, I know what I said before but…it’s an anime with boys and music! Could this be the next Gravitation that many of us have waited for?

Ritsuka Uenoyama on the outside has always seemed listless when it comes to many things and can’t be bothered with most people or demands. One day, he was about to take a nap in a stairwell when he comes across another student by the name of Mafuyu Satou. At first glance he’s pretty aloof, but the second Mafuyu met Uenoyama he couldn’t stop hanging around him. After having quite the hard past, Mafuyu took to Uenoyama’s kindness (or whatever you call it) and took a fascination with him. He even managed to join the band Uenoyama was in. While Uenoyama had his reservations over this sudden change, he finds himself dealing with feelings he’s never felt before.

Is this love that he’s feeling? God, I hope so! BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: At the moment, no licensors have taken this anime and it’s only available through Crunchyroll. I swear Yuuma Uchida is having one hell of a year in the anime voice world. I know he’s been around for a couple of years and really hit it off with roles on Banana Fish and ReLIFE. But this year with his main roles on Kono Oto Tomare and the Fruits Basket reboot have really given him quite the boost. Give this boy a Seiyuu Award! Here’s what you might recognize these folks from. *Uenoyama is played by Yuuma Uchida (known for Kyo on Fruits Basket 2019, Eiji Ootori on UtaPri, Chika on Kono Oto Tomare, Ash on Banana Fish, Ooga on ReLIFE, and Shirazu on Tokyo Ghoul :re) *Mafuyu is played by Shougo Yano (known for Nanao on Tsurune) DISLIKED CHARACTER: In a yaoi-esque series, what is the one element I despise more than life itself? The cock-blocker! Actually, this is a trait I see in other genres of animes. Simply put, these are the characters who think they know one character better than anybody else and have this aura of jealousy because some new guy is in the picture. But when I see an annoying bitch hanging around a potentially cute ship and cock-blocking the cuteness, I lose my shit!

Fuck is this lady’s name? Kasai?! Whatever, cock-blocks like you need to go away! Though I will give her some leeway as she does apologize later in the series! It’s just that I found what she did to Uenoyama to be a bit of a “dick-move”. I’ll just be happy if I don’t see her in any upcoming projects this series has. SHIPPING: I knew I was expecting something to eventually happen with the Uenoyama x Satou ship. But I didn’t expect much from Haruki x Aki! Let’s get crackin’!

*Uenoyama x Mafuyu: From the beginning, I'm like, I want this to happen one day…but I know Mafuyu is still in pain after losing the love of his life. For the majority of this series, I see Mafuyu being aloof and depressed. The only exception is when he’s playing the guitar with Uenoyama (at least at the beginning). As we all know, Mafuyu has been in pain ever since losing his best friend and boyfriend, Yuki a year prior. As for Uenoyama, feelings started to develop once he spent a lot more time with Mafuyu. We even get a realization for Uenoyama when he learned about Mafuyu’s love, he got jealous. Aw, our boy loves Mafuyu! I’ll delve deeper into what happens after a certain point in the ending.

*Haruki x Aki: So I didn’t expect any kind of chemistry with these two outside of the band. But it turns out Haruki has had a crush on Aki since meeting him at college. Their friendship and becoming bandmates kind of came without any kind of super drama. And Haruki has been able to keep his feelings in check when he’s playing in the band with Aki. I mean, Haruki is pretty strict about dipping your pen in the company ink (if you get my meaning). It’s just that he does get blushy when he’s super close to him. Like when he’s being pinned down on the bed because Aki had a few too many beers and Haruki is just embarrassed. Unfortunately for this ship and for Haruki…Aki has a boyfriend!

I don’t like Aki’s boyfriend. No way, no way, I think he needs a new one! *sighs* …Yeah, I gotta talk about it…

*Mafuyu x Yuki: So Yuki’s reveal was building throughout the series that made the audience wonder if this was an unrequited love of Mafuyu’s, a sensei who can’t love him now, or someone who is no longer with us. But once you understood that Mafuyu and Yuki’s relationship dates back to when they were children and they have such a history, you can feel that pain Mafuyu carries with him everyday. Yuki would be there for him during tough times, including dealing with an abusive father, yeah, our boy had some issues. Yuki was a seemingly good friend and lover to Mafuyu. There was even a cute moment when Yuki takes him to the ocean, saying he wants Mafuyu to remember this moment. But what happened to Yuki? Unfortunately after the boys began high school and went to different schools, their relationship strained. And then one day Yuki was found dead due to alcohol poisoning (weird, I would have guessed suicide). Yes, Yuki’s death was freakin’ traumatic for Mafuyu. This was a big enough shock to the system to cause him to not be social and to carry around his dead lover’s guitar everywhere (even though he doesn’t know how to play it). And yes, in that song the group sang in the 9th episode, Mafuyu went the extra mile to express his feelings to his long-lost love. I would have to wonder a bunch of ‘what ifs’ with Yuki. Because poor Uenoyama is fighting against a dead guy. MAFUYU’S SONG: Just watch.

My boy Mafuyu here is giving me some super feels with this song!

EPISODE TITLES: Ever notice how all the episode titles are named after famous songs. Let’s just say I was thrown off when the episodes were named Creep (song by Radiohead), The Reason (song by Hoobastank), and Wonderwall (song by Oasis). God only knows what the name of the movie will be! I’ll laugh if it’s The Dope Show, Bittersweet Symphony, or I Alone. ENDING: So Haruki, Aki, and Uenoyama were given the opportunity to perform in front of an audience. Now the big question is if Mafuyu is up to the challenge of performing with the rest of the group. He only just recently joined the group and isn’t that great playing on the guitar. But the boys have hope with his vocals. He does have a good voice. It’s just that up until the night of the performance, Mafuyu hadn’t written down any lyrics. No question this boy has something to get off his chest, it’s just that Mafuyu was conflicted moments until they go on stage. It wasn’t until they were on stage where Mafuyu let out everything in their opening song. That heartbreak of losing the person you loved just shook the audience to its core and hit every single person there. Mafuyu’s friends were happy that he finally released all that pain he’s been holding in. Uenoyama’s classmates were inspired to hold onto the person they love tightly. And after the performance, we got our moment we fangirls have waited for since episode 1…

A MOTHER-FLIPPIN’ KISSUUU! Although this kiss (while passionate), was kind of forgotten on Uenoyama’s side as he forgot what he did and Mafuyu caught a fever shortly after the performance. I know Uenoyama has been wanting to do this because throughout the series, we kept seeing the boy conflicted over him liking Mafuyu. He even got jealous over a dead guy! We know he likes Mafuyu and we know that kiss after Mafuyu's performance was more than just a "Good job, mate" kiss. So will Uenoyama's feelings be returned? After Uenoyama came to terms over what he did and Mafuyu recovered from his fever, Mafuyu took Uenoyama to the ocean. I know this was a little symbolic for Mafuyu as Yuki brought him there when they were dating. And while there, Mafuyu told Uenoyama that he liked him. And Uenoyama noticed that...

IT’S MUTUAL! HIS LOVE IS MUTUAL! But then, Uenoyama remembers an ugly reality. Long before Mafuyu joined the band, the other guys were talking about a band breaking up over two of the bandmates getting involved with each other (romantically) and Uenoyama said some pretty…well, hypocritical things. That’s why many folks try to steer away from dating someone who’s a co-worker, a co-star, and in this case, bandmate. This is also a driving factor why Aki will never be the one to step up and tell Haruki he loves him. Haruki’s gotta be the one to leave that dickhead boyfriend of his. LEAVE HIM ALREADY! Regardless, Haruki and Aki are both happy for Uenoyama and Mafuyu’s new love. And now the boys feel refreshed in trying to come up with a second song, do a photo shoot, and even come up with a steady band name, “Given”. And so we get this cute end with a lingering hope that a season two will come and… Or a movie! Damn, that was fast, guys! Okay Crunchyroll, when this comes out, I want you guys to hop on it and get this movie in theaters. I don’t care if it’s in Seattle, just get it shown in WA. The ball is in your court now, don’t fuck this up! Also...

Uenoyama, please protect this boy's smile. I like this anime! I have such a weakness for animes involving characters in bands. And believe it or not, it was not because of Gravitation. For me, it was because of NANA. I fell in love with the songs and the characters and the simple story. Now of course this anime fell way too close to Gravitation’s orbit and that’s because of the yaoi aspect. My only gripe is that we really only got one memorable song (aside from the opening and ending theme). But it’s only the beginning the way I see it. I hope that Mafuyu is able to sing some more. And with a new movie on the horizon, I’m severely hoping for a soundtrack filled with awesome music. Seriously, I will laugh if the title of the movie really is, Given: Bittersweet Symphony. I give a recommendation to those who love musical animes or those of you into Shounen-Ai. I’m into both and I don’t judge. Currently, Crunchyroll has all 11 episodes available for streaming.

[thefloatingstone]

Somebody asked me for some anime recs. I asked them what kind of genres they’re into but I’m not getting a reply, so here are just some general recommendations for good stuff to watch.

I assume they meant new anime so I’m only focusing on those.

Made in Abyss (2017) (warning for Body horror, violence and gore)

The Abyss—a gaping chasm stretching down into the depths of the earth, filled with mysterious creatures and relics from a time long past. How did it come to be? What lies at the bottom? Countless brave individuals, known as Divers, have sought to solve these mysteries of the Abyss, fearlessly descending into its darkest realms. The best and bravest of the Divers, the White Whistles, are hailed as legends by those who remain on the surface.

Riko, daughter of the missing White Whistle Lyza the Annihilator, aspires to become like her mother and explore the furthest reaches of the Abyss. However, just a novice Red Whistle herself, she is only permitted to roam its most upper layer. Even so, Riko has a chance encounter with a mysterious robot with the appearance of an ordinary young boy. She comes to name him Reg, and he has no recollection of the events preceding his discovery. Certain that the technology to create Reg must come from deep within the Abyss, the two decide to venture forth into the chasm to recover his memories and see the bottom of the great pit with their own eyes. However, they know not of the harsh reality that is the true existence of the Abyss.

Pros:

Ghibli artists working on the backgrounds and environments

likeable characters

crushing atmosphere

incredible world building

Really compelling mysteries

Very emotional

Cons:

The manga its based on has a lot of lolicon bullshit. But the anime has doneits best to either remove or downplay those elements as childhood innocence rather than the author being a creep

Ends without clear answers as we have to wait for season 2

Not for you if you dislike violence or body horror

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime (2018)

Thirty-seven-year-old Satoru Mikami is a typical corporate worker, who is perfectly content with his monotonous lifestyle in Tokyo. In the midst of a casual encounter with his colleague, a knife weilding maniac attacks them. Satoru, in shielding his co-worker and his co-worker’s new girlfriend, is fatally stabbed, and dies.

And then he wakes up again. But now, in the body of a blob of slime. In doing so, he acquires newfound skills—notably, the power to devour anything and mimic its appearance and abilities. He then stumbles upon the sealed Catastrophe-level monster "Storm Dragon" Veldora who had been sealed away for the past 300 years for devastating a town to ashes. Sympathetic to his predicament, Satoru befriends him, promising to assist in destroying the seal. In return, Verudora bestows upon him the name Rimuru Tempest to grant him divine protection.

With a goal now, the newly named Rimuru sets out to explore this fantasy world, stumbling into situations where other people need help, and since finding ways to live peacefully is much less hassle, Rimuru does his best to settle conflicts and help people to get along. Mostly because he’s got nothing better to do.

Pros:

Likeable, chilled out protagonist who acts and behaves like an adult

Not the average wish-fullfilment harem-in-disguise type stuff you expect from the average Isekai show

Characters focusing on trying to help each other and be kind without coming across as cheesy or unrealistic

Fun powers and “how are you gonna fix this mess?” situations

Cons:

occasional anime tiddy

Mob Psycho 100 (2016) (If you’ve seen season 1 already then watch season 2)

An Eighth-grader Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is possibly the most powerful psychic on earth. Which is the only thing he has going for him which, in his opinion, isn’t much. Due to his powers going crazy if he gets overwhelmed by his emotions, Mob has spent his life suppressing his feelings, both negative and positive. As a result, however, Mob is an extremely socially awkward and shy person who struggles to connect to people.

The story follows Mob as he tries to find ways to better himself as a person, aided by the fake psychic Reigen who both uses Mob’s real psychic powers to exorcise ghosts, but also uses his fake con-man skill of charming people and being a smooth talker to help people fix their problems rather than have them rely on a psychic for help. He also acts as a mentor to Mob, not on how to be a better psychic, but on how to mature into a good, capable person. Because according to Reigen “Having psychic powers is just a skill. Some people can run fast, some people can can sing well, some people are good at studying, some people are funny, and some people have psychic powers.”

Now if only the assortment of Cult leaders, Ghosts, Secret organizations and Powerful psychics trying to take over the world could leave him alone.

Pros:

A subversion of the “I must get stronger!” shounen story where the character is already the strongest and needs to focus on being a better person instead.

Probably the best animated show to come out in years

Good uplifting morals

A wacky off-beat art style and sense of humour

Genuinely complex and 3 dimensional characters who are likeable

Really relatable in many ways

Cons:

I can’t think of any tbh

Then we have anime I have on my “to watch” list and come highly recommended but I haven’t seen yet. But I want to recommend them anyway

A Place Further Than The Universe  (2018)

a “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” show.

Filled with an overwhelming sense of wonder for the world around her, Mari Tamaki has always dreamt of what lies beyond the reaches of the universe. However, despite harboring such large aspirations on the inside, her fear of the unknown and anxiety over her own possible limitations have always held her back from chasing them. But now, in her second year of high school, Mari is more determined than ever to not let any more of her youth go to waste. Still, her fear continues to prevent her from taking that ambitious step forward—that is, until she has a chance encounter with a girl who has grand dreams of her own. Spurred by her mother's disappearance, Shirase Kobuchizawa has been working hard to fund her trip to Antarctica. Despite facing doubt and ridicule from virtually everyone, Shirase is determined to embark on this expedition to search for her mother in a place further than the universe itself. Inspired by Shirase's resolve, Mari jumps at the chance to join her. Soon, their efforts attract the attention of the bubbly Hinata Miyake, who is eager to stand out, and Yuzuki Shiraishi, a polite girl from a high class background. Together, they set sail toward the frozen south.

The Promised Neverland (2019) (warning for violence and gore)

Surrounded by a forest and a gated entrance, the Grace Field House is inhabited by orphans happily living together as one big family, looked after by their "Mama," Isabella. Although they are required to take tests daily, the children are free to spend their time as they see fit, usually playing outside, as long as they do not venture too far from the orphanage—a rule they are expected to follow no matter what. However, all good times must come to an end, as every few months, a child is adopted and sent to live with their new family... never to be heard from again. However, the three oldest siblings have their suspicions about what is actually happening at the orphanage, and they are about to discover the cruel fate that awaits the children living at Grace Field, including the twisted nature of their beloved Mama.

Zombieland Saga (2018)

There’s a good chance you might have heard or seen this one floating around tumblr as its one of the really big, really popular anime to have come out that features a trans main character written and presented in a positive light.

Zombieland Saga is both a satirical parody of Idol anime, a complete embracing of what makes idol anime enjoyable, and a criticism of how the Idol industry treat women and young girls. A lot of the girls in the idol group are the complete opposite of what is considered a “good Idol” from one girl being trans, one girl having been an Oiran many many years ago (a historic proffession for women where they play instruments, perform tea ceremonies and entertain paying guests. As well as being very high class prostitutes) as well as debating and comparing the ideal of an Idol as they were seen in the 80s versus the modern interpretation.

Zombieland Saga is at both times the complete antithesis of everything an Idol anime should be, while also being one of the best examples of the genre at the same time. It also features really well written characters with emotional depth and arcs to them and boasts a lot of good humour to boot.

Yuru Camp△  (2018)

Another “Cute Girls Doing Cute things” anime

While the perfect getaway for most girls her age might be a fancy vacation with their loved ones, Rin Shima's ideal way of spending her days off is camping alone at the base of Mount Fuji. From pitching her tent to gathering firewood, she has always done everything by herself, and has no plans of leaving her little solitary world. However, what starts off as one of Rin's usual camping sessions somehow ends up as a surprise get-together for two when the lost Nadeshiko Kagamihara is forced to take refuge at her campsite. Originally intending to see the picturesque view of Mount Fuji for herself, Nadeshiko's plans are disrupted when she ends up falling asleep partway to her destination. Alone and with no other choice, she seeks help from the only other person nearby. Despite their hasty introductions, the two girls nevertheless enjoy the chilly night together, eating ramen and conversing while the campfire keeps them warm. And even after Nadeshiko's sister finally picks her up later that night, both girls silently ponder the possibility of another camping trip together.

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai (2018)

You’re gonna look at this gif and that title and think this is some Light-Novel sexy fantasy wish fullfillment bullshit, but I absolutely assure you it’s not.

The rare and inexplicable Puberty Syndrome is thought of as a myth. It is a rare disease which only affects teenagers, and its symptoms are so supernatural that hardly anyone recognizes it as a legitimate occurrence. However, high school student Sakuta Azusagawa knows from personal experience that it is very much real, and happens to be quite prevalent in his school. Mai Sakurajima is a third-year high school student who gained fame in her youth as a child actress, but recently halted her promising career for reasons unknown to the public. With an air of unapproachability, she is well known throughout the school, but none dare interact with her—that is until Sakuta sees her wandering the library in a bunny girl costume. Despite the getup, no one seems to notice her, and after confronting her, he realizes that she is another victim of Puberty Syndrome. Mai’s unapproachability and air of not wanting to interact with people has manifested that it is now borderline impossible for people to physically notice her. Or in some cases see her at all. As Sakuta tries to help Mai through her predicament, his actions bring him into contact with more girls afflicted with the elusive disease.

Bunny Girl Senpai is an anime that deals with Societal pressures, especially as they apply to teenagers, as well as being a criticism of the Japanese mentality of “not rocking the boat” and in dutifully conforming and falling in line with what society dictates is “proper behavior”. It has the running theme that this mentality of just accepting the way things are and not doing anything to change it is unhealthy, and does more harm than good.

Dororo (2019) (warning for violence and Gore)

A samurai lord has bartered away his newborn son's organs to forty-eight demons in exchange for dominance on the battlefield. Yet, the abandoned infant survives thanks to a medicine man who equips him with primitive prosthetics—lethal ones with which the wronged son will use to hunt down the multitude of demons to reclaim his body one piece at a time, before confronting his father. On his journeys the young hero encounters an orphan who claims to be the greatest thief in Japan. 

An anime adaptation of one of Osamu Tezuka’s manga, but deciding to go for an updated, darker art style to match its mature tone.

Dororo is currently still airing but so far reviews are extremely high.

Anyway I hope those are enough to give you at least one new show to check out.

[recentanimenews]

Summer 2019 Anime, Ranked.

With the exception of Fire Force’s twelfth episode, we’ve wrapped up our coverage of the Summer 2019 season, which is just as well since we’re technically in the second week of Autumn.

Between Braverade, sesameacrylic and MagicalChurlSukui we watched and reviewed eleven shows in all (plus additional coverage from Oigakkosan, not detailed here), totaling 132 episodes, or approximately 53 hours. Without further math, here’s how we ranked those shows, and why.

11. HenSuki

RABUJOI Score: 7.00/10 MAL Score: 6.83/10

Pros: Novel premise, colorful pastel palette, likable characters, generally witty banter, risque ecchi situations that never cross hard lines of decency.

Cons: Uneven at best animation, silly central mystery that drags on too long, “twist” resolution feels like a cheat.

Verdict: An enjoyable, fluffy guilty pleasure. I try to watch one per season.

10. Lord El-Melloi II Case Files

RABUJOI Score: 7.77/10 MAL Score: 7.44/10

Pros: Built-in goodwill from Fate/Zero, always intriguing setup for cases, sumptuous setting, production, and mechanical design, stirring score, bonkers magical battles.

Cons: Excessive magical technobabble can be exhausting, conclusions to mysteries can feel contrived/arbitrary, non-Fate fanatics will end up hopelessly lost by most cameos or name-drops.

Verdict: A pale shadow of the classic upon which it’s based, but nonetheless a fun and moderately clever detective series.

9. Fire Force (Episodes 1-11 of 12)

RABUJOI Score: 7.82/10 MAL Score: 7.75/10

Pros: Gorgeously bizarre alternate-universe setting, elegant world-building, virtuoso action sequences, powerful orchestral soundtrack.

Cons: And MC who is dull and cliched within an inch of his life, Characters who go from evil-to-good (or vice versa) at the drop of a hat, a tedious central conspiracy, the potential for character bloat, frustratingly uneven gender balance, pathetic bouts of fanservice.

Verdict: A stylish show primarily about spontaneous human combustion might’ve weathered news of the horrific KyoAni arson attack, but isn’t quite good enough to watching following into the Fall.

7 (tie). How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift?

RABUJOI Score: 7.83/10 MAL Score: 7.68/10 Pros: A fresh, original premise to which it remains totally devoted, marvelous comic timing in the rapid-fire, self-deprecating, fourth-wall breaking dialogue, lovable and believable MC, decent animation, one hell of an earworm OP.

Cons: Ecchi elements and a superfluous Russian chick don’t add much, some parody bits are too on-the-nose, the show loses momentum in the final couple episodes.

Verdict: The show that inspired me to get off my skinny, underdeveloped backside and actually join a gym for the first time in my life!

7 (tie). Cop Craft

RABUJOI Score: 7.82/10 MAL Score: 6.94/10

Pros: Cool reverse-Isekai-lite premise, Range Murata character design, toe-tapping OP and lively soundtrack, entertaining buddy cop dynamic, engaging fights and chases.

Cons: Lame villains, some odd narrative choices, inconsistent/unfocused direction, disappointing animation, underutilized supporting cop cast, lots of loose ends.

Verdict: A show with some good parts to work with, mostly used badly. A wasted opportunity that’s not as good as our episodes ratings indicated.

6. DanMachi II

RABUJOI Score: 8.25/10 MAL Score: 7.45/10

Pros: Appealing, charismatic characters you love to root for, amusing romantic polygons, tremendous score, superb utilization of twelve episodes to tell a variety of engaging stories with a beginning, middle and oh-so-epic end, culminating in a quiet finale that doesn’t forget its core goddess-child dynamic.

Cons: Villains’ barks prove far worse than their bites, a couple slower episodes between mini-arcs don’t really distinguish themselves, and that huge Amazoness Phryne…what the hell?! 

Verdict: After the very lame Sword Oratoria spinoff DanMachi got a proper sequel, focused on the characters we cared about, full of emotion, excitement, and good old-fashioned fantasy ass-kickin’.

5. Fruits Basket 1st Season (Episodes 14-25)

RABUJOI Score: 8.50/10 MAL Score: 8.36/10

Pros: Impeccably-rendered characters and depictions of their various psychological issues, dark and poignant flashbacks, exquisitely cozy slice-of-life, a good balance of the mundane and the mystic, and hard-hitting cathartic scenes.

Cons: Some members of the Souma family are more interesting (and tolerable) than others, but even the less interesting ones get plenty of screen time, Tooru’s saintly selflessness can wear thin at times.

Verdict: A beautifully-crafted second half that rewarded patience by delivering some of the strongest and most moving episodes of the year.

4. Master Teaser Takagi-san 2

RABUJOI Score: 8.58/10 MAL Score: 8.40/10 Pros: Truly magnetic chemistry in the central pair, Deft use of subtle facial expressions and body language in the animation, superb performances by Takahashi Rie and Kaji Yuki.

Cons: Like the first season, the various teasing games can grow repetitive, as can Nishikata’s denseness and inability to see more than one or two moves ahead, the side stories involving side characters often felt like padding.

Verdict: Continues and refines the brilliantly simple teasing formula of the first season, while ever-so-gradually blurring of the line between teasing and flirting. A sweet and touching, slow-burn portrayal of young, awkward first love.

2 (tie). Vinland Saga (Episodes 1-12)

RABUJOI Score: 8.67/10 MAL Score: 8.57/10

Pros: Flawed but rootable MC whose character is more complex than it initially seems, his multi-layered antihero mentor, exemplary action and battle sequences, powerful score, compelling exploration of the hard old world, with enticing glimmers of a brighter new one.

Cons: That said mentor would keep a kid dedicated to murdering him around so long stretches credulity at times, those battle sequences sometimes feature individuals or groups doing superhuman things that detract from the otherwise naturalistic milieu.

Verdict: While not quite as big, loud, epic, or bonkers as Attack on Titan, or Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Vinland Saga is arguably Wit Studio’s most balanced and human series. Looking forward to the second half.

2 (tie). Astra Lost in Space

RABUJOI Score: 7.77/10 MAL Score: 7.44/10

Pros: Very well done futuristic world- and space-building, a large-ish main cast that you steadily come to know and love, the sense of family that arises from the crewmembers’ experiences together, an optimistic spirit of exploration that isn’t constantly beset by mortal peril, creative planets and lifeforms, thankfully subverted expectations for a Lerche-style bloodbath.

Cons: “Character gets a backstory” formula to some episodes felt repetitive at times, the crew almost faces too little mortal peril considering their circumstances, they similarly rely on a lot of luck, some major plotlines and twists could have been left out and still resulted in a pretty strong show.

Verdict: Maybe the season’s biggest surprise hit, the ambitious Astra calls to mind some of the best of live-action shades-of-gray sci-fi (Firefly, Battlestar, Expanse) while maintaining an old school optimistic, exploratory outlook. It set out to do and say a lot, and was mostly successful in doing so.

1. O Maidens in Your Savage Season

RABUJOI Score: 8.58/10 MAL Score: 8.40/10 Pros: Fearlessly tackles tough social topics on adolescence, sexuality, gender roles, upbringing, and abuse, ably juggles multiple, diverse love stories and triangles at once, pleasingly drawn and animated, and despite all its serious themes, doesn’t leave out the comedy.

Cons: What seemed to be an irreversible dive into an abyss that would tear the five girls apart, they work almost everything out almost too easily for a tidier ending than expected; while the show dips a toe in LGBTQ themes through Momo’s awakening, her’s is one of the least developed arcs despite being one of the most interesting.

Verdict: A rare-for-anime honest and unblinking exploration of the awkward, painful, and sometimes savage emotional journey to adulthood all kids must face (and not always at the same speed). By the numbers, the best show I watched this Summer, and the one I looked forward too most from week to week.

Summer 2019 Big Board:

By: rabujoistaff

[seiyuunotabi]

50 Question Tag Game

50 QUESTIONS TAG GAME Tagged by @rubydragon16. Thank you for the tag Amina-san, sorry that this is long time over due. I decided to do this tag for my birthday! Work has been getting to me~ Anyways I will add a “Keep Reading” if anybody is interested in reading this. Thanks again! 

1. What takes up too much of your time? Work.

2. What makes your day better? Listening to music before I head to bed after a long day at work or watching an anime episode or kdrama episode before I go to bed (if I have time and I'm not so tired from work xD)

3. What’s the best thing that happened to you today? Building my new desk that I got as an early birthday present from my mom (built it on my day off, of course)

4. What fictional place would you like to go to? This is a hard one...there’s too many for me. But I guess the first one that pops in my head would be, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun world I guess xD Or maybe an Isekai? 

5. Are you good at giving advice? It all depends on whom I'm talking too.

6. Do you have a mental illness? I don't think I do. There are times where I do get depressed but it's not so bad to the point where I want to harm myself.

7. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? Nope.

8. What musician inspires you the most? BTS, Bangtan Sonyeondan (gotta learn to love myself before anything else, need that self care)

9. Have you ever fallen in love? Yup.

10. What’s your dream date? Going to the arcade.

11. What do others notice about you? Hardworking, quiet, and kind.

12. What’s an annoying habit you have? That I'm not sure.

13. Do you still talk to your first love? Nope.

14. How many exes do you have? Zero.

15. How many songs are in your playlist? I have multiple playlists, but I guess I'll just go for my top 25, on my itunes. So 25 :)

16. What instruments can you play? During school I played the flute in the school band for a couple of years.

17. What do you have the most pictures of? Seiyuus.

18. Where would you like to go before you die? This is hard it's between these 3 places, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.

19. What’s your zodiac? Cancer.

20. Do you relate to it? In some ways, I guess.

21. What is happiness to you? Living healthy and having a sustainable job that I can live off of and also like.

22. Are you going through anything right now? Yup.

23. What’s the worst decision you ever made? Getting another job but then again I need the money to live xD

24. What’s your favorite store? Don't have one.

25. What’s your opinion about abortion? It's all up to the person having the abortion, I fully respect whatever they decided to do. Because I know it's not an easy decision to make.

26. Do you keep a bucket list? Yes.

27. Do you have a favorite album? Nope.

28. What do you want for your birthday? A greeting and a good conversation. However, anything is fine by me, as long as it’s not harmful.

29. What are people’s first impressions of you? Quiet and kind.

30. What age do you seem according to most people? 16-18.

31. Where do you keep your phone while you’re sleeping? On top of my drawer, which is located across from my bed.

32. What word do you say the most? What?

33. What’s the oldest age you would date? 5 - 8 years

34. What’s the youngest you would date? 5 years

35. What job/career do most people say would suit you? Either to do with teaching kids, dealing with children, listening to people's problems and helping them coupe with them.

36. What’s your favorite music genre? I don't have one.

37. If you could live in any country in the world, where would it be? Canada, I love living in my homeland.

38. What is your current favorite song? Pray - Klang (Angel's Last Mission: Love OST Part 7)

39. How long have you had this blog for? Since 2014

40. What are you excited for? More episodes of To Aru Kagaku no Accelerator, Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-Domo Yo, and Konosuba S3 (powered through S1 & S2 and man I loved it, so funny).

41. Are you a better talker or listener? Listener.

42. What was the last productive thing you did? Building my new desk.

43. What do you want for Christmas? Good memories.

44. What class do you get the best grades in? Art AP & Digital Media and Photography.

45. On a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling right now? 8

46. What can you see yourself doing in ten years? Maybe married? Working still and trying to enjoy life? And if not, enjoying the single life and working.

47. When did you get your first heartbreak? I think it was either 2nd or 3rd year of high school.

48. What age do you want to get married? 30? 35? But then again it's not going to happen xD I’ll just be living the single life~

49. What career did you want to have as a child? Nurse

50. What do you crave right now? Watermelon.

Anybody is free to do this tag if you want, no pressure! Hope you enjoyed this tag! And have a good day! Thanks again @rubydragon16 for the tag! 

[lycorogue]

Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 2 - Gyateara)

First and foremost, I meant to have this whole series to be sort of churned out the same day/week as Part 1. Life.... didn’t let that happen. I then figured “okay, I’ll update the series every Sunday” and then yesterday came and went...

Regardless, from the NEXT POST onward, I’m aiming to update every Sunday. Now, back to the series itself.

Ever since at least November, I’ve wanted to do individual posts for each of my OCs so you could meet them all. Well, I’m finally getting off my butt and working on this massive project (we’ll ignore that I’m spending hours working on this instead of my ML fanfic.... >_>).

In Part 1, I gave a broad overview of this whole Meet My OCs series, as well as gave some generic IRL background to the two main worlds my OCs hail from:

1) Gyateara

2) Glitches

Well, in this part of the series, I’m going to stay IRL as I explain where each individual OC within the Gyateara universe came from. If this is interesting to you, feel free to check below the break.

If you’d rather just skip ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one about my Glitches character Willow should be up in two weeks (sorry for the wait).

If I’m talking about Gyateara characters, I should probably talk about the one that first birthed the world: 

Amara Yori

Amara was my first-ever D&D character. I had known of the game for ages since my father used to play it frequently (and apparently roped my mother into at least running the monsters so she’d be included; ignoring that she’d rather not be included XD). 

I really got interested in D&D when I was a teen and saw the gorgeously stylized covers for AD&D ver 3.5. My father had passed away before officially introducing me to the game (although we did used to play Dungeon all the time, so that was a start...), and none of my friends were going to touch that “nerd culture” with a 10ft pole, so I simply admired the books, but never actually played. Then I went to college and managed to Nerd Out.

Hubby (then boyfriend) offered to help me build my first-ever character, but in 2004 the D&D 3.5 expansions were so massive I had far too many choices to choose from.

So Hubby had me go through some of his extra minis, and let me pick out one that I really liked. With his help, I ended up with the 2003 version of the Wood Elf Skirmisher.

Based solely on this mini, I started building Amara.

Hubby suggested that I try out the Scout class for my first one, since I couldn’t choose between a Rogue, Ranger, or Druid, and Scout is sort of in between at least the Rogue and Ranger classes. For whatever reason - I can’t remember it now - I also decided I wanted to play a half-elf.

Upon reading the generic backstory description the D&D books had for the Scout class, I figured my character needed some sort of Tragic BackstoryTM that would explain her scouting skills. Things like trap finding and dismantling, masterful rope use skills, hiding and tracking skills, and connection to animals.

I was in a big The Vision of Escaflowne kick at the time - which shows up in a couple other characters’ backstories - and was fascinated with the history between Van Fanel’s parents. Van’s human father Goau stumbled upon Varie, a Draconian woman, in the woods one day. Draconians have the ability to manifest feathered wings which allow them flight. It was rare to see a Draconian, and her beauty - with her wings shimmering in the moonlight as she waded in a small pool of water - mesmerized Goau. He instantly fell in love and brought Varie home to be his wife. The duo seemed to love each other deeply. Amara’s parents, on the other hand....

I’ll get into more when I break down their actual bios, but I took the idea of “Human stumbles upon exotic non-human in the woods and instantly marries her” and twisted it slightly. Amara’s mother was very much emotionally, and possibly even physically (I haven’t confirmed this yet), abused by Amara’s father. Amara, being a half-elf, also had to deal with abuse at the hands of many of her fellow clansmen - both the human and the elven clans; pretty much exclusively because she was a “half-breed” (Yes, I was really into InuYasha then too).

As I kept building Amara, I kept adding more and more tragedy to her backstory. I do enjoy what I created, but, especially after reading a lot of posts here on Tumblr, I’m afraid her history is nothing but a giant knotted ball of cliches and tropes. For now, though, I’m running with it. Perhaps I can figure out work-arounds later....

I never did get to play more than a session or two with Amara before the game disbanded (which seems to be a repeat thing with my gaming group), but she still lives on in my mind, and eventually in Gyateara.

Natalie

As I mentioned above, The Vision of Escaflowne very much inspired me while I was working on the earliest bits of Gyateara. Therefore, Natalie is your basic Isekai protagonist.

For those who don’t know the term (I didn’t know an official genre term existed until about a year ago), Isekai refers to a subgenre of fantasy/speculative fiction where the main character is abruptly teleported from their world to a new one; usually one with a fantasy setting.

It’s a massive subgenre and includes most of the fantasy animes I’ve watched:

InuYasha

The Vision of Escaflowne

Fushigi Yuugi

The Devil is a Part-Timer

The Rise of the Shield-hero

The Saga of Tanya the Evil

The Familiar of Zero

How to NOT Summon a Demon Lord

Sword Art Online (technically)

.Hack//Sign (technically)

Digimon (first season, specifically)

Psyren (manga)

The list can go on, but that’s not the point of this post. Getting back to the actual point, I clearly enjoyed this genre without even realizing there was a term for it, and created my own Isekai story. Natalie is from our world, but is abruptly teleported to Gyateara’s main Northern Isle, where she must save the country from being destroyed by a power-hungry, put painfully charismatic, villain.

I had taken elements from Kagome (InuYasha), Hitomi (The Vision of Escaflowne), Miaka (Fushigi Yuugi), and I think I had Ariel (The Little Mermaid) in there as well at one point. She was - and still kind of is - just “Generic Isekai Female Protagonist”, which is one of the main reasons the story she was in failed so soon into NaNoWriMo back in... 2014, I think. Almost a solid decade after I started dreaming up her Isekai story. She definitely needs to go back to the drawing board a bit to be properly fleshed out.

Connor

He was from the same story as Natalie. Connor was a denizen of Gyateara’s Northern Isles, and became Natalie’s traveling companion as he helped her try to find a way home. Ya know, that old Isekai chestnut. I even leaned heavily into the cliche and had the two of them fall in love throughout their journey. Which would lead to a third-act twist of “Okay, we can defeat the villain, but then what? Could they stay together? Would Natalie stay on Gyateara? Will Connor instead try to go home to Earth with her?” Real original. I know. Add in that Connor was a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of a character. Grab a snack, this is going to take a minute...

Connor’s traits included:

The basic backstory and drive of the player character in the video game Fable, in which his father was killed, his mother and sister tortured (and presumed dead, only to be proven still alive and captured), his home village burnt down, and he was taken in by the local guild so the guild master could train Connor to become the hero the GM believed Connor was prophesied to be.

The half-demon traits of InuYasha (InuYasha), which transformed him into a sort of were-cat. His mother, a full-demon, could become a 15ft (4.57m) tall panther with split tails. Connor’s half-demon heritage was hidden from him, and he only transformed under extreme moments of stress.

Yes. The “love interest is the only one who can snap the protag back from a monstrous rage” trope was heavily evident throughout the story.

His overall look was inspired by Link (Legend of Zelda video game franchise). His basic fighting style - swordsmanship and expert archery - was a sort of tag-teamed “thieving” from Link as well as Van (The Vision of Escaflowne).

A highly resistant, and begrudging submission to become the Hero of Prophecy lifted off of Tamahome (Fushigi Yuugi).

I know he was much more influenced by Van from Escaflowne when I was first making him. I even used Van as a reference guide when I tried to create character head shots of him. I just can’t recall now what else I swiped from that character.

I feel like there are also other male anime/video game protags I swiped traits from, but I can’t recall them anymore. Regardless, I threw them in a blender, and poured out the mixture that became Connor.

Jolene Crisslebalm

Ah, the character whose last name I always have to look up, because I can’t recall how I spelled it. Good starting point, right?

I am a very reserved person. In particular, a very sexually reserved person. But I do enjoy sex, and I love the act of flirting, and the “thrill of the chase” when it comes to dating, so a part of me always wonders what I would be like if I had let go of my reservations and just enjoyed the carnal pleasures of life.

So, two characters in particular - Willow (from Glitches) and Jolene - are my exploration of that Path Not Traveled. 

A friend of mine was hosting a D&D campaign via Roll20.net, and wondered if I wanted in. I hadn’t been involved in a D&D game in a year or so at that point, and I’ve enjoyed playing a couple of one-offs with him DMing, so I leapt at the chance to join. I had almost always played a form of Rogue class (hence the internet persona) in previous D&D campaigns, so I decided to stay the course, but with a twist I hadn’t tried before.

I wanted Jolene to be a sort of reluctant adventurer, preferring instead to be a cat burgler, but I also wanted that sexual/sensual exploration of character. So, she was a traveling prostitute (not exactly legal without proper ties to a brothel; much like a Sex Trade Guild sort of thing), but she also used her “alone time with clients” to scope out the place to see if it’s worth robbing.

Fast forward about 3 years, and I end up watching the first episode of the Freeform Marvel series Cloak and Dagger... where I saw Tandy doing the same thing, but roofying her targets instead of sleeping with them first... Great minds, and all that?

Eh, Jolene figures “might as well make money off of them before coming back and robbing the rest... less to carry later...”

In the end, while Jolene had an.... interesting run... and one I actually did enjoy role playing, even if it did leave me a bit frustrated afterwards (a good frustrated?)... Jolene just didn’t fit the world the DM created, nor did she fit in quite as well as I would have hoped with the other players.

They were all AMAZING players, by the way. Some of the best role players I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and such fantastic writers as well. BTW, we wrote out everything in the Roll20 chat log instead of verbally playing or using video-chat. I must admit, I was quite envious of their skills. It was just a tighter knit group, and I wasn’t able to feel out their play-style well enough to continue with the group. Eventually they all had to go their separate ways anyway when their schedules no longer lined up.

Still, I LOVED Jolene, and she was the D&D character I had the joy of running the longest, so she NEEDED to live on. She did, in my first NaNoWriMo “win”. I managed to hit those 50,000 words, but I still had about 3/5ths of her story to write. 

See, while coming up with Jolene’s jaded attitude towards love and her pull towards a more hedonistic lifestyle, I went with the good old cliche of Heartbreak Was The Culprit. (With so many cliches in my character builds, is it a wonder why I just stick with fanfiction... the characters are already created...)

Jolene had her heart broken five times between the ages of 13 and 21. She was the type who fell quick into love, and fell HARD into it, and always felt intensely betrayed by her lovers when they left her. To be fair... they did routinely leave her for a woman of better social standing, or - in her youth - someone more willing to put out, or just straight up abandon her without so much as a farewell note. Eventually, she gave up on trying to find love, and joined a brothel, and then the thieves guild, and then headed out on her own from there.

The DM thought it unlikely that she was a prostitute for the better part of 5 years without a single pregnancy, so he rolled for it, and Jolene had one miscarriage, one still born, and one healthy child she gave up for adoption. I was not expecting to include that in her backstory, but it actually worked fairly well.

And all of that was the subject of my NaNo project: Lost Loves and Paramours. Jolene’s full biography leading up to the campaign: every man she fell in love with, every person she slept with, the one client who tried to murder her to avoid a scandal of his lust getting the better of him, the pain of her miscarry, the devastation of her stillborn, the heart break of giving up her surviving child, the struggles against a stalker, and her over-all YOLO attitude.

(Bitmoji is a beautiful thing...)

Well, second long post of this series is now complete. Next week, I’ll talk about the IRL inspiration for my Glitches characters. Thank you so much for indulging me on these epic ramblings.

[whisperandmantra]

My Favourite Shows of 2017

Happy New Year! It’s time again for my list of favourite shows of the year. Here’s to another year of good anime. Thank you for following and I hope you are enjoying the good anime we had this year. I present the list, in no particular order.

ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka

Political intrigue, double crossing, and a secret coup. This show was excellent at world building and making the world seem like a real and interesting place. It’s rare to find a nicely wrapped up show in one cour especially when there were so many different plot lines going on with the characters.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

Continuing off a few years after the first season ended we get to hear the rest of the story. Focusing more on Konatsu and Yotaro, we see the story of Yakumo taking on an apprentice and trying to keep rakugo alive. The second season was a roller coaster of emotions and had some of the most beautiful scenes.

Little Witch Academia

Trigger back to save anime again! This time making a series out of an OVA. This show is charming and adorable. Akko is a genki girl with so much spunk and the supporting cast is just as awesome. In typical Trigger fashion the show amps up the stakes in the final arc and we get a grand finale that is both wonderful and sweet. The animation is great as expected in a Trigger production, and the various little Easter Eggs always make me smile.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon / Miss Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon

An otherworldly creature takes up residence in a office worker’s home and decides to live with her. Hi-jinx ensue. This show is full of warm fuzzies and Kana is the cutest. Plenty of jokes to be had here and the animation is very smooth, as expected of Kyo Ani.

Re:Creators

Take the isekai trope and reverse it, that’s what you get with Re:Creators. Fictional protagonists get transported to the real world.Add a dash of Sawano and you have an entertaining series with quite a few twists and turns. I enjoyed that they pulled in different types of protagonists from different genres of shows as well. A mech pilot, a chivalrous knight, a magical girl, and a mage to name a few. I was thoroughly amused by this series and it was good fun. The antagonist was a little too much for me at times with their over powered abilities. But just a minor annoyance in an otherwise great show.

Uchouten Kazoku 2 / The Eccentric Family 2

The long awaited sequel to a show I never thought would get a sequel, but I am so glad that it did. Rejoining the antics of Shimagomo family we get introduced to a few new characters. I love the colours in this show and how vibrant everything looks. Yasaburo is also a babe <3.

Made in Abyss

Wow, this show took me by surprise having heard virtually nothing about it before watching the first episode. The world building is fantastic, and the character designs are so unique. The creatures living in the abyss are also terrifying. Also the soundtrack is PHENOMENAL and inspired. Do yourself a favour and watch this show. The suffering depicted throughout their journey into the abyss was pretty gut-wrenching as well.

Mahoujin Guru Guru

Where do I even begin with this show. I think it was one of the most consistently funny shows that I watched this year. Every episode has me laughing out loud at one joke or another. The gags don’t get stale even when re-used. Kukuri is so precious and her smile must be protected. The animation is really smooth and consistent and they occasionally use 16 bit animation. It actually feels like I’m watching an RPG, they even have status bars that show up throughout the show that sometimes show their levels. It’s really quite hilarious.

Princess Principal

Female spies in an alternate universe steampunk-London. If you can handle a non-linear story progression then you should take a look at this show. The soundtrack is done by one of my favourites, Yuki Kajiura. The episodic nature of the show allows some of the side characters to really shine and I actually like a side character as my favourite character because of their backstory. It’s rare that an original show like this manages to be so captivating so early on in it’s run.The artwork and character designs are nice and Victorian England makes for an exciting setting for spies.

Garo Vanishing Line

I know this show is 2 cour and will spill into 2018, but the first cour was excellent and warrants it’s inclusion on my list of faves. I really am getting into the Garo franchise and Mappa is doing an incredible job of showing their strengths with this franchise. It’s got plenty of action and an interesting plot line. The first cour was mostly episodic in nature, introducing the characters of the series and now the second cour I think will delve into more lengthy story arcs. But so far it has me entertained.

Houseki no Kuni / Land of the Lustrous

OMG this SHOW!!! I think I can say that it is my number 1 favourite show of 2017. Everything about it is so stunning and gorgeous. The choice of using CG has some people divided, but I love it. I’ve been a fan of CG shows since Knights of Sidonia and Ajin, and Houseki no Kuni demonstrates the epitome of awesome things you can do with CG. The camerawork is stunning for fight scenes and you can do things that you’d never see in 2D animation. I think CG is the perfect format for a show like this. The colours are gorgeous and the characters are so endearing and full of life. The show’s universe is mysterious and I desperately want a season 2. I could literally talk about how much I love this show for hours, but I’ll just tell you that you have to watch it. It’s criminally under-watched in my opinion. Story wise, you have these genderless gemstone characters who fight against the Lunarians who are trying to kidnap them, break them into fragments and use them as weapons to capture the remaining gemstone characters. There is also an air of mystery going on and you barely scratch the surface of the truth behind this universe. I love this show it’s a masterpiece of art.

Inuyashiki

Well this show was a pleasant surprise. Not only does it have a complete adaptation, but it’s a pretty badass show. So this old man and teenager get turned into super powered robots. Then you see how different they react with their new found powers. They mix a little CG in when they use their robot powers. It’s a bit clunky at times but the story is compelling enough to make me not notice it. Also the OP is sung by Man With A Mission, one of my favourite Japanese groups so that’s a bonus.

Kekkai Sensen & Beyond / Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond

I didn’t think it was possible to top the first season of Kekkai Sensen because it was so cool. But this second season is WAY better. Now you have to be a fan of the episodic format as each episode is pretty much standalone except two two-part arcs. We get a lot more time with side characters and learn more about the background of my favourite character, Chain. <3 <3 Also Steven (total DILF) gets a lot more screen time which is great. It has the same humour and upbeat zany atmosphere as the first season but it really feels more like a labour of love where the characters are given time to shine. And the characters are the strong point of this show. The OST is also really great as it mixes jazz, RnB, rap, hip hop style songs as it’s supposed to be a take on New York. It also has some amazing sakuga scenes because it’s got the BONES people working their magic.

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou / Girls’ Last Tour

This show really surprised me. It was so comfy, yet melancholy. Two girls are just travelling around in a tank in what appears to be a post-nuclear/apocalyptic Earth. The background and atmosphere is really great, it reminds me of Blame or the city of Sidonia with layered city structures and industrial almost steampunk type environment. It’s kind of a lonely show with just snippits of their lives together roaming the wasteland. The OST is glorious and relaxing though. I’d say it’s kind of like a slice of life except not heavy handed with the jokes. You really feel that they are the last few remaining people on Earth. The voice actors also have excellent chemistry as it’s just those two girls talking to each other essentially the entire episode, yet the show remains engaging.

[xtremedespair3d]

My 10 Year Journey

It’s here. The end of the 2010 decade is finally here and now we’re finally gonna enter the 2020 decade! Although technically the decade won’t start until 2021, but who really cares? I’ve seen people hyping “Best things of the decade” and whatnot, so it still counts.

This post isn’t just going to be a 2019 year review with what to expect in 2020, the year and the decade, but I’m also telling a bit of my life over the last 10 years, though I may vaguely remember what happened, so this is going to be my longest post yet.

Also, this is going to be my final post I’m going to publish in Tumblr, I’m quitting for good. You’ll find out why when you read this post.

First, let’s start off with my usual Top 10 (and 20) lists of everything that happened this year:

Top 20 Best Anime:

20.- Virtual-san wa Miteiru

19.- Kaguya-sama: To be honest, I wasn’t quite impressed with Kaguya-sama, I didn’t like it as much as everyone else but I did like parts of it. And I of course agree that Chika is best girl. Maybe season 2 could help me change my mind.

18.- Fire Force

17.- Watanuki-san Chi No: This one’s more calssified as a dorama instead of an anime like Virtual-san wa Miteiru but whatever. With this and Virtual-san wa Miteiru, I’m still optimistic about the future of VTuber anime because I want to see more.

16-  Dumbbell Nan Kilomoteru: I really need to go to the gym again or try to practice the home exercices as shown in the series.

15.- Tokunana

14.- Fate/Grand Order Babylonia

13.- Lord El-Melloi II Case Files

12.- Ikki Tousen: Western Wolves

11.- BanG Dream! S2

10.- Quintessential Quintuplets

9.- The Promised Neverland

8.- Rising of Shield Hero

7.- Isekai Quartet

6.- Bungou Stray Dogs S3

5.- W’z: Yes, regardless of the hideous visuals GoHands has somehow fallen to grace, I really liked it so much that it helped redeem myself on Hand Shakers as a franchise because of its story.

4.- Girls’ Frontline Healing Chapter

3.- Fruits Basket

2.- Mob Psycho 100 II: Mob Psycho 100 is in a better hands than One-Punch Man has. No studio changes bound and Bones continues to deliver amazing animation that exceeds ONE’s art.

1-C.- Azur Lane: The Animation

1-B.- Kemurikusa

1-A.- Kimetsu no Yaiba: Ufotable wins for the second time in a row since 2018′s Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan series with this year’s Kimetsu no Yaiba!

All of the praise there’s been towards Ufotable with Kimetsu no Yaiba just make their other works (aside from Fate) otherwise forgettable (which is sad and I shouldn’t say that because I’m a Ufotable stan).

But, that’s not the end of the journey, there’s a film based on the Infinite Train arc happening and, surprisingly, it’s actually happening! It’s not a vaporware like the Katsugeki Touken Ranbu film or even Girls’ Work!

I’m still worried about Ufotable’s future given the tax fraud investigation, but whatever the case, I hope they can manage to clear things out and still running with marvelous projects, whatever they have in store (and literally in the shelf with the aforementioned Katsugeki Touken Ranbu film and Girls’ Work)

I had entries #1A to #3 and #20 figured out, but good lord! Figuring out what should #4 to #19 be! It took me forever!

Honorable mentions:

-Attack on Titan S3 - Part 2

-High Score Girl II

-Kakegurui XX

-Danmachi S3

-Manaria Friends

-Lupin III OVAs

-Welcome to Japari Park: This is a 2018 series but it has kept me on high spirit than Kemono Friends 2 ever has, it has given me depression instead. However, that doesn’t mean it tops the original Kemono Friends, this remains like my #2 favorite Kemono Friends anime. By the way, I didn’t know it was a two-cour series which the series got really interesting by the second-cour.

I really hope there’s another season, that teaser at the final episode has so much potential for them to not make any more Welcome to Japari Park!

UPDATE - February 1st 2020: As of the editing of this post, there’s still no season 2 to be found, or worse yet, I think it might not even be made at all. Well, it was quite a ride. F.

Top 6 Worst Anime:

6.- W’z

5.- Virtual-san wa Miteiru

Yes, I know I already had put W’z and Virtual-san wa Miteiru in my Top 20 Best Anime category, I had to include them as the worst because not only sometimes I do feel they’re kind of bad in their right with their visuals, but I’m mainly doing it for the sake of not looking like a lunatic. But there are 4 other anime that definitely need some of their own commentary.

4.- Mini Toji: Speaking of the Toji no Miko franchise, I heard that there’s gonna be an OVA based on the mobile game and my god, I really wish Toji no Miko can just die already.

(To be honest, I don’t know why I’ve grown to hate Toji no Miko if there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just an instinct or something like “I don’t like your guts”.)

3.- Granblue Fantasy The Animation season 2

2.- Miru Tights: I really wanted to like Miru Tights because it’s Yomu anime, but the show itself was pretty boring and tries to push the tights fetish so far that completely turns me off, but the worst thing yet is that TRUSS (The studio that made the series) privatized every episode as weeks went by! I thought watching the series on YouTube with English and Chinese/Taiwanese subtitles was a great accessibility for everyone to watch it! I thought they were considerate to do that but I have to take that statement back on having every episode privatized.

This is why I absolutely prefer stockings/knee-highs over tights/pantyhose, I love me that absolute territory so much.

1.- Kemono Friends 2 and One-Punch Man 2: That’s right, a tie between these two.

With One-Punch Man 2, the visuals are a major disaster and it nowhere near follows the heart from the original by Madhouse despite having some decent sakuga moments but still tries really hard and gets ruined with motion blur. Story is relatively faithful to the manga (because I do read it, unlike you RedMakuzawa), but it just wasn’t told properly with its horrendous animation.

I’m glad that pretty much everyone is saying that One-Punch Man 2 was a disappointment.

Kemono Friends 2 is obviously the biggest thing I truly hated the most this entire year. I never asked for a completely new storyline that won’t even follow the teaser from the first season’s ending, I never asked for a completely new human character to take Kaban’s spot as the main character (I’m happy that Kaban is still here but I’m not happy with her role), I never asked for Kemono Friends 2 to exist at all!

Although, come to think of it, there were like quite a lot of good moments, but most of the time, I couldn’t care less for certain characters like Kaban and Caracal and this entire recycled plotline, not to mention the occasionally inconsistent framerates in the animation too.

Both were destined to become my worst anime of the year, no thanks to studio changes.

Top 10 Best Movies:

10.- Captain Marvel: Let’s start with a little controversial. As a Marvel fanboy, I just tend to watch every MCU movie because of the story, regardless of quality and whatever, and I’m pretty sad that pretty much everyone hates it, even my older sister. At least there’s two friends I know who did like the film and it helps make me feel better.

9.- Once Upon a Deadpool: This is a 2018 release but I happened to watch it on January 2019, so I had to include this here. Yes, it’s Deadpool 2 but with the gore and profanity cut off, but it was worth rewatching the film even toned down.

Except I wasn’t prepared for the Stan Lee parts. ;_;

8.- X-Men: Dark Phoenix: I did enjoy the film, flawed (?) for sure but it wasn’t objectively bad. The way I think it’s flawed it’s because it just made me ask a lot of questions and lacks context about who the villains are, are they Skrulls or not?

(Wow, three Marvel movies in a row.)

7.- Detective Pikachu: So I’m not a big Pokemon person, but I’m sure this year was pretty much Pokemon year, from Sword & Shield, Ash finally winning a Pokemon championship and new anime series, and of course, Detective Pikachu.

This was quite a very good video game movie with appealing realistic Pokemon, albeit the pace was a little too fast.

With that said about how the Pokemon look, I think I’m definitely gonna see the Sonic movie. I’m pretty sure it’s not gonna be as great as Detective Pikachu in terms of story, but at least seeing Sonic’s new design is something.(We do not talk about Sonic’s old design)

6.- IT Chapter Two: There’s really nothing wrong with the film. It’s just as good and keeps up the same pace as the first film!

5.- John Wick 3

4.- Shazam: DC has been quite in a roll this year since Aquaman, things just gets better with Shazam and Joker (although Joker is its own self-contained universe and Shazam is DCEU). I nearly cried on the part where Billy’s adopted family turned into the Shazam family! Quite some comic book inspirations!

3.- Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel II. lost butterfly: This was truly the most chill anime movie experience I’ve ever had in the cinema. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Resurrection was also a decently chill but at times people did yell but not super loudly compared to the other films I’ve seen.

The worst part about my experience is that I was literally dying from the very second half of film! My god, I’m definitely not drinking a lot of soda very often, I even went to the bathroom earlier. I’m blaming it on the Takis popcorn we always eat!

With that being said about the crowd in my cinema, I actually wanted to get a very lousy crowd because I started audio recording my phone so I can share to people how annoying Mexican weebs in my cinema can be, especially at that Shirou x Sakura scene, but it turns out there wasn’t a whole lot of people and the theater was in absolute peace, so I pretty much recorded the entire film in audio.

Anyways, the film itself was still pretty nice, can’t wait for the third part and at this point, I probably shouldn’t be begging for Konnichiwa (the distributor) to bring it, I’m pretty sure they’ll definitely will given that they released the first two films so far.

2.- Godzilla: King of the Monsters

1-C.- Spider-Man: Far From Home: I really quite loved Spider-Man: Far From Home and because I’m heavily biased to Spider-Man films and MCU films for this to become either second next to Avengers: Endgame, the next film just took its place for a good reason.

1-B.- Joker: This was an absolute masterpiece of a movie I’ve ever seen in my birthday! The Murray Franklin interview scene is my favorite scene in the entire film because the Joker monologue where he talks about the three subway dudes he killed and society in general just really speaks to me, it sounds similar on my existential crisis rant I fussed over on Discord servers EARLIER.

Venom was also a good birthday movie I got last year, though it came out a day later and I’m kinda sad, but Joker, since it came out exactly on my birthday, is definitely a gift I wholeheartedly deserved it! I want my movies to be released right on time! I also need more villain movies in my birthday in my life! (Though it depends which character because I’m sure I won’t be as convinced as Venom and Joker)

However, even if it was one of the best birthday gifts I’ve had in my birthday, I DID NOT let Joker to dethrone this next film...

1-A.- Avengers: Endgame: My #1 most anticipated movie of the whole year finally arrived and the one I seriously did not let this film get dethroned like last year with Spider-Verse over Infinity War! Wouldn’t you know it, this film literally brought me into absolute tears, hit me in the feels, EVERYTHING!!!

The way the film was marketed, the secrecy behind it and everything, and while the film delivered, all that stuff we previously believed has all been a lie and it was quite a surprise! They did not mess around with how important this film was going to be!

But alas, there’s still those ungrateful bastards who just ruin the film with things they say they don’t like or whatever! LIKE, SERIOUSLY, COME ON! YOU DO NOT TALK SHIT TO A MOVIE LIKE AVENGERS: ENDGAME, EVER!!! I DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF CAPTAIN MARVEL IS FORCED AND BARELY HAS ANY SCREENTIME OR WHATEVER, JUST APPRECIATE THE FILM FOR WHAT IT IS, THE PURPOSE, AND EVERYTHING!!! LEARN TO BE GRATEFUL!!!

Ugh, whatever. At least I didn’t hear that many complaints that left me a sour taste anyways.

Marvel just went so far with rereleasing Avengers: Endgame but with extra minutes of footage with cut content! That really sounds amazing, and it gets better when it was a worldwide release, including Mexico! Although... I really would have loved to rewatch the movie, but the schedule turned out to be at 9 PM, so for 3 hours, I would have gone around 12:30 or 1 AM and that’s a big no-no, I would have been killed. I also wanted to see it with my older sister but she was hospitalized at the time, and we couldn’t anyways because of the late ass schedule, so we had to wait until Spider-Man: Far From Home instead.

I don’t really care if those extra minutes are rough unfinished CG stuff that we can just see from the Blu-Ray (which I’ll never get), I just wanted to rewatch everything in the cinema, but I couldn’t because of the ridiculous schedule my cinema chose.

The moment Captain America said “Avengers... Assemble!”, I literally started bursting into tears, and so were the crowd being hype as fuck! My god, what else can make me cry from something this hype?!

There’s just a lot of stuff I want to discuss about Avengers: Endgame but I really can’t just process it! This was my absolute #1 favorite movie of the year and I definitely did not let any other film dethrone it! I love it 3000!

Honorable mentions:

Toy Story 4: I enjoyed the film regardless of everyone saying “Toy Story 3 should have been the final movie for good and this is just a cashgrab” or whatever, thankfully I didn’t cry at the ending, but I’m sad that my older sister didn’t like it for some reason.

Promare: I’m seriously disappointed that Promare didn’t come out in Mexico while America were seeing the film. I’ve been seeing fan arts galore and maybe a bit of spoilers, though I’m kind of in the dark about it. I really hope Promare comes out in Mexico next week! Just as long as the crowd isn’t absolutely noisy, though I had such experiences before, but I heard that America is much worse on noisy people in the theaters when the film was rerun a couple of times, jesus...

Top 10 Best Games:

This might be my most controversial category yet because I literally haven’t played any single of these games (except for two) and I’m heavily biased towards franchise I care the most, developer(s) I care the most, aesthetic, etc., not so much about quality and most importantly, experience by having played them at all. But even so, I want to congratulate them by their existence.

10.- Persona 5 Royal: As much as I like Persona 5 from how it is, the aesthetic and everything (I haven’t played it myself, I’ve seen my older sister play it), but it has turned somewhat of a controversial topic for me, because literally everyone I know has quite some harsh feelings on the game and it just affects me so much given how much praise I have seen, so I kind of walk away from P5 nowadays.

But now, there’s Persona 5 Royal! Not only has some cool new content, but I hope it improves some issues the vanilla version has left behind!

(I only want the new content, to be honest)

I wonder if Persona 4 had this kind of similar backlash, because I see Persona 4 Golden in a different light where it just simply adds new stuff and not try to fix the issues from the vanilla version (it does but it’s not how I see it)

9.- Kingdom Hearts 3: I’m not a Kingdom Hearts person but I’m happy that the long awaited KH3 is finally out, although it might be quite divisive because of the story and its issues, but it seems like ReMind is going to fix these issues.

8.- Pokemon Sword & Shield

7.- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3

6.- Fire Emblem Three Houses.

5.- Untitled Goose Game: HONK!

4.- God Eater 3: I wanted to tie GE3 with Code Vein, but I was eager for Code Vein the most than God Eater 3 and I haven’t seen much of it honestly, but I’m still including it here because I like the God Eater franchise but I’m not quite an avid fan, at least until I play GE2 and of course GE3. I just need to grow some interest with God Eater some more because I really like the post-apocalyptic aesthetic and everything.

3.- Azur Lane: Crosswave

2.- Resident Evil 2 Remake: Capcom’s redemption arc continues! And with its success, it’s even lead to the development of Resident Evil 3 Remake which it’s gonna come out next year, and I’m surprised that they’re working on it already.

1-D.- Code Vein: I’ve become quite furious when the reviews for it came out. The Metacritic shows that the game is average at best and people be like “This is garbage, I’m out” and my god, I’m seriously frustrated with all that shit. I waited for a fucking year and I don’t want to get disencouraged when I’ll ever have the chance to play it.

But thankfully it didn’t stop me from seeing people playing the game and it makes me more than happy that they do.

I had to go so far on spoiling myself and... what I heard was one of the best things ever, which I’m probably not gonna spoil for you.

1-C.- Astral Chain

1-B.- Devil May Cry 5/Travis Strikes Again: I have to make this a tie for two reasons, they’re my biggest franchises in my life, but they have differing levels of my personal importance.

With Devil May Cry 5, I never thought the good DMC will ever come back, after having to suffer through DmC, there was also DMC4: Special Edition released in 2015, but that’s kind of whatever, but then, shit just got real when it was revealed in E3 2018!

Anyways, let’s talk about post-release, the story is absolutely nice, they went with throwing a bit of throwbacks and it just screams everything absolutely worthy for answers and pay-offs, though the ending feels kind of inconclusive, seems kind of they’re going to be open with maybe a Special Edition of DMC5 or even DMC6, but who knows, but then hopes get ruined as Capcom announced they were done with the development of DMC5 after the Bloody Palace release, which means no more Vergil, Trish and Lady DLCs, which it’s utterly disappointing! (But will there still be a Special Edition? It took 7 years for DMC4 to get one (2008-2015))

One other problem I have with DMC5 is that Capcom might have done a very poor job on keeping Vergil a very big secret. I think it was already known that Vergil might have going to appear in DMC5 for so long, from Dan Southworth’s (Vergil’s VA) Facebook post with the #DMC hashtag, from people editing Urizen’s voice and they found a match on Dan’s Vergil voice, to Capcom outright releasing a spoiler trailer! Sure, people sure want to avoid that trailer, but really? Weren’t they supposed to treat Vergil like he was a really huge deal for the game that’s not worth spoiling at all?

Also, the game continues to be extremely stressful with the harder difficulties, but since I have played DMC3 a long time ago, my skills haven’t gone out of practice!... Mostly.

Now, let’s talk about Travis Strikes Again. The moment it was announced on the Nintendo Switch event in January 2017, I literally started bursting into tears and yelled out loud! Later in August, at PAX, a new trailer was revealed and even if it was a teaser CG video (it’s the first game’s opening post-release) and my god, it looked gorgeous. Then things started to get sour as Atkin Downes tweeted that he was “disappointed”, that he wasn’t brought back to voice Travis or something, and I was utterly disappointed, but things changed when in December, it turns out that Robin Atkin Downes was returning to voice Travis, not only him but the original voices for Shinobu and Bad Girl are returning as well, my hope was restored! (Though I was already gonna see how the game would turn out regardless)

The game came out and at first, I saw seeing Grasshopper‘s Twitter account retweeting positive reviews from lesser known articles, which I was good at first, but then someone posted the Metacritic where it has mixed reviews, like at 70 something (under 75) and I was kinda sad.

Some people may say that the game is a disappointment and the gameplay is repetitive, and boy, I don’t give a SHIT about what these fuckheads (see what I did there?) say about the game. Though I still have yet to experience the gameplay myself (chances are that I wouldnt really find it repetitive. Pretty much every game is. Uh, hot take), but when I watched walkthrough videos of the entire game, the Travis Strikes Back segments (a visual novel-inspired segment) are what brought me ABSOLUTE HOPE for the game overall, the story pretty much has! The lore and everything that explains what happened a little with Travis’s disappearance from Santa Destroy, he’s even got kids with Sylvia, Badman’s origin story from Badman Strikes Back from the DLC, EVEN THE EASTER EGGS LIKE FUCKING MONDO ZAPPA FROM KILLER IS DEAD, ALL THE EFFORTS SUDA PUT INTO THIS IS JUST AN ABSOLUTE LOVE LETTER FOR ME AS A NO MORE HEROES FAN (And for general Suda fans too, though I’m not the most hardcore Suda fan as I haven’t played The Silver Case and other games to understand the references).

The second patch of the game came and there’s a brand new opening featuring Killer7! And this just changes the No More Heroes Universe, no, the Sudaverse!

My god, there’s a lot of stuff I want to say but can’t process, but let me just say this: Even if you didn’t like the game, or you find it disappointing, you’re wrong! The story and the lore should be the biggest redeeming factor of Travis Strikes Again!

Just when I thought I want to get a Switch to play Travis Strikes Again, a few months later, a rerelease of the game with all of the DLC for PS4 and Steam came out in October and oh boy, that gives me a huge opportunity to play the game, either on my shitty ass laptop or in my PS4 (which I finally got it after so long and I’ll later explain why)! I really hope it goes the same for No More Heroes 3--WHICH BY THE WAY, there was a bit of problem around Travis Strikes Again where people thought NMH3 was going to be sequel bait when Suda said that if TSA sold well, the development for NMH3 would start, but I didn’t care if it was a problem or sequel-bait or not, I just wanted people to buy this game as much as possible, especially when the post-credits scene straightup teased NMH3!

One other thing I find it weird about TSA’s existence, is that Suda says that this isn’t much of a numbered sequel or a spin-off, I don’t really get what Suda means on what TSA is, but I’m still treating it as a sequel storywise, considering that NMH3 takes place after TSA. The post-credits scene definitely doesn’t mess around!

Then E3 2019 came and... NO MORE HEROES 3 IS A REALITY! IT’S DEFINITELY HAPPENING AFTER 9/10 YEARS!!! I’M REALLY GLAD TRAVIS STRIKES AGAIN GOT SOLD WELL ENOUGH TO MAKE NMH3 HAPPEN, AAAAAAA, I’M SO HAPPY!!!!! I NEED A SWITCH TOO!!! THOUGH I DO WISH THE GAME WILL COME OUT ON PS4 TOO, BUT AT THE MOMENT, I WANT TO GET A SWITCH FOR NMH3!!!!

Anyways, I’m done discussing Travis Strikes Again.

I put these two games as a tie for big reasons: They’re both my favorite franchises I hold dear the most (though I absolutely hold NMH at the very bottom of my heart more than DMC), both games are fighting between their pros and cons, one I definitely have played (DMC5) and one I haven’t (TSA)...

Let me point out their pros and cons real quick:

Devil May Cry 5:

Pros:

Amazing gameplay and graphics.

Amazing soundtrack.

Amazing story with neat throwbacks.

Cons:

Development finished, so don’t expect any more DLC.

Travis Strikes Again:

Pros:

Story that’s a much bigger love letter, helps explain what happened to certain characters after NMH2, etc. And even features Suda51 easter eggs.

Two DLC expansions than DMC5 will ever have.

Cons:

Kind of whatever gameplay. (for other people, not for me)

I do think Travis Strikes Again is much better in terms of content than DMC5 but it’s kind of a debate. They’re still amazing games regardless!

1-A.- Death Stranding: A Hideo Kojima Game = Instant #1 winner. And perhaps this is the most surprisingly divisive Kojima game I’ve ever seen in my life (Perhaps more or less divisive than Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain), at least with the reviews alone (At least in America, Europe and Japan have 9s, 10/10s), that doesn’t stop from seeing quite some cultural impact already, memes, fan arts and stuff.

I’m disappointed that it didn’t win Game of the Year in The Game Awards because obviously it’s such a big game, though not everyone really cares and it makes me sad, at least it’s still won some awards and won GOTY in other not-so relevant award shows.

The game is pretty much filled with an excellent gameplay, with a bit of realism where you trip yourself with rocks and everything, the game is filled with quite some originality, the actors, easter eggs, pretty much the most ambitious Kojima game ever and I’m having a damn fun with it!

As of the writing on December 28th, the day before I just beat episodes 4 and started episode 5, so it seems like I’m still long ways off on finishing the rest of the game and I still haven’t finished through the story (which I don’t find it confusing, by the way).

Part of the gameplay definitely reminded me of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the controls and everything felt familiar and it was really neat, even if it’s something for a completely original IP, part of the gameplay was still familiar with some MGSV vibes.

For those of you who think that Death Stranding is a disappointment or whatever (looking at you WatchMojo and everyone else), you are absolutely dead wrong! I don’t know what kind of Kojima game you definitely expected to be so bad but turned out to be something else, just get out of here and try to focus on something else, maybe you’re better off with seeing Kojima things with Metal Gear! Death Stranding definitely isn’t for everyone alright, especially for assholes like you!

I definitely expected Death Stranding to come out on 2020, but I enver thought it might already come sooner in November 2019 (Although Kojima did tease it might come out in the “year of Akira” (being 2019), so I guess I should have seen that coming, I completely forgot about it). Kojima has come a really long way with making his new studio, hiring people, finding studios to cooperate and make Death Stranding, everything in just 4 years and it was amazing for him and his team to put all of their efforts when it comes to making this and the wait was definitely worth it!

Honorable mention:

Custom Order Maid 3D2 English version: I had played the Japanese version before and I see there was a trial version for the English version. I hadn’t really thought it was gonna be an actual thing until I started seeing a Custom Maid Twitter artist retweeting a tweet of a Japanese gaming news site that the page for Custom Order Maid 3D2 was live.

Things around the English version of the game are relatively fine, but that is until the CR shop maintenance, talks about how to improve it, and even considering outlandish requests people make which aren’t on the original Japanese version of the game, the kind of original content just screams a huge insult for the Japanese Custom Maid community. Shit gets worse when the people I have talk with can’t even access the Steam page!

With all of the content that’s way behind and everything, I decided to go back to playing the Japanese version (especially when I found a torrent of CM3D2 + COM3D2 with all of the DLC until Spring 2019 or something). Except that given that it has way too much content, it’s so fucking slow for my laptop. But at least I’ll use the JP version for making characters and screenshots and I’ll play the English version for the campaign.

Whatever brand new original items might end up being, I hope they might be interesting enough for me to start begging for them to come out on JP so hard.

Alright, here’s a non-biased GOTY list with new releases that I HAVE actually played and some older games too.

3.- English Custom Order Maid 3D2

2.- Death Stranding

1.- Devil May Cry 5

Honorable mentions (Older games):

Valve games: Half-Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead games.

VA-11 HALL-A: I’ll explain the story of how I came to play this game later down the line.

Saya no Uta: Steam release. I know I probably shouldn’t rely on official Steam releases and go for the fan made translations especially when they don’t have the adult content, but the thing is I didn’t have trouble buying the adult patch, and it was super cheap too. Besides, I don’t have any trouble with the translation so far, even if I don’t really speak Japanese, even if the little I know I definitely understand with the official English translation, so I’m not really dumb.

Melty-Blood: This is the first fighting game I have played for a bit in a long time when I’ve grown to be less of a fighting games person. I haven’t played the story campaign nor I would want to right now because I’m going to save it until I play Tsukihime just so I can understand some characters and other things.

There, you happy? (I’m definitely not using this non-biased list at all and honestly, it’s a hard tie between DMC5 and Death Stranding because I love these games right now)

Anyways...

Dishonorable mention:

Left Alive: I’m not really mad about how bad it is, but it sure looks quite unplayable. How did the developers even get away with making a broken game like this? The only things I can appreciate this game is how good it looks (at least on still), and of course the Yoji Shinkawa art.

Instead of doing a traditional review focusing on 2019 alone, I’m going to explain my journey I went through for the last 10 years, of course I’ll review the year 2019 in there, and after that, my resolutions and what awaits me in 2020. I may not remember everything, I only remember the biggest parts of my life.

Worst game:

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG: Every time I look at the game, mainly from the writing, I can’t help but think the game just gives me an existential crisis, because if I pull some shit like how they referenced a real life death of someone and among other ludicrous things, I think I’m definitely walking away from joining the industry and for my creativity to exist.

Bonus

Song of the year

“P.S. RED I” by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure: Spider-Verse was a 2018 film, but it didn’t release in Japan until March 2019 and what better way to promote the movie is having a kick-ass theme song by TK! Seriously, ever since I’ve been seeing the Japanese trailers and I heard a portion of the song, I was absolutely eager to check the full song, and once I started listening to it, I couldn’t stop listening non-stop! I’m not sure if it’s actually featured in the movie, but even if it’s not, at least this song is still something!

Ling Tosite Sigure (The entire band) also made another Spider-Man song this time for Spider-Man: Far From Home titled “Neighbormind”. With these two songs, I want TK/Ling Tosite Sigure to make Spider-Man songs forever!

Sorry, Devil Trigger, even if Devil May Cry 5 is a 2019 game, you already came out last year.

Artists of the year

(NSFW content warning)

Ogata Tei: I sure am super fixated on Ogata Tei’s Childhood Friend series because at the beginning of the year, I really couldn’t care much for his new works, but until Summer, my spirit has been lifted where Ogata is still delivering more of the series, not just once but twice in two Comikets in a row! I seriously can’t wait for more Childhood Friend series to come out and buy every single one of the doujins! (If possible, I also wish Ogata Tei wouldn’t be so slow with the DMM FANZA releases because the previous two doujins took about a year for them to come out digitally) (Also, please, I’m not a stalker)

Hinosuna: This one is truly the best Custom Maid 3D2 artist I’ve ever seen and met, not only he makes amazing futanari CM3D2 pictures and he’s quite a gamer too. He’s also the first Custom Maid person to make collab pictures with my characters and he did some in July and for my birthday, and he event went so far for gifting me VA-11 HALL-A on my birthday and boy, that was one of the best surprises I’ve ever gotten in my life!

I’m really sorry, Souryu, no more Kouiunogaii, not worth mentioning you here.

(This is probably gonna be the last time I’m going to do this category)

And now, we’re finally done talking about our Top categories! Now let’s finally start talking about a bit of my life in the last 10 years, and then my 2019 review and what to expect in 2020!

2009: Let’s start off with a little silly but upsetting, this was the year where I made my definitive Roblox account. I have played Roblox like a year or two prior as a guest but I finally started to play as a full account or something. I’ve always been making like a few but I wasn’t getting satisfied with them, probably because the usernames had really long numbers, e-mail or password, something like that, but then one of the usernames with really long numbers stood out, and I decided to make into the Brandon2126 account, I played it non-stop until I stopped playing Roblox for good in 2013 the moment I got my PC fixed for like the 5th or lost count for how many times my old computer kind of got messed up, but this one had finally has Windows 7 Home Premium and my sister was like “No Roblox.”, and it magically made me stop playing Roblox anymore. And in the process where I was making the accounts, I was genuinely being yelled at and beaten and even threw water on me in the process... yeah.

There’s another bad memory in 2009 I have, and it’s where I was watching Life in Portal: Madness on Newgrounds, this predates Avengers: Infinity War with the most ambitious crossover 10 years ago, but for some reason, this kind of encouraged me because I kind of hated how they killed Eddsworld (or just Tom), my mom started talking to me and at some point, I yelled at her to the point that I legit made her cry... yeah... this was probably like the first time, even at almost 10 years old at the time, I was becoming a human trash like I partially become today...

Okay, what a lovely way to start my 10 year journey from 2009 with some bad memories, but now we’re moving on to the next years with short but good memories... that is until you reach 2012 or 2013.

2010: I don’t really remember much of what happened this year, but the only thing I remember is that in Halloween (October 30th or 31st), I went to an anime convention with my older sister, it was really neat but then I saw a booth with a screen playing Highschool of the Dead, and the one frame I remember is the bloody floor from episode 2.

I wish I can go to these local conventions very often but at the same time I tend to think how kind of cheap and poorly made are by my city’s standards or something...

2011: This was the year where I started to finally get gaming consoles, starting with the PSP Go, and it’s where I first started playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and I believe this was my genuine first Metal Gear game I started playing. I grew up with Metal Gear with Egoraptor’s Awesome series but I definitely haven’t played any of the games at all.

2012: I vaguely remember what happened to me or what were the most special things that happened and did, but all I can remember is that I’ve had some really bad problems with DeviantArt. Going by BMT2126StudiosMK, I had some seriously bad behavior during those times, to the point where I was kind of like straight-up method acting or something like that, and thinking about it just grosses me out and wish I can go back in time to stop myself for how I was back then.

2013: My problems with DeviantArt start to get much worse when this shit happened. Geez, 13-14 year old me was the absolute worst, ever.

That aside, ever since I played Metal Gear Rising, I can’t help but think that the game has gave me so much inspirations for the projects I want to make, it pretty much boosted my creativity in terms of the weapons, the technology, everything else in MGR.

2014: This year was my worst yet. It started with one of the best moments of my life early that year, because I get to watch Highschool of the Dead in my own cable TV with my older sister. I happened to notice that HOTD was coming to Mexican TV from a Facebook group about people who want to change Cartoon Network LA by removing the censorship and every other crap the channel has, if it weren’t from that group, I wouldn’t have ever known about it.

But in a few months later (I forgot specifically when), one night, I was watching La Sopa (Mexican version of The Soup), and when it was on commercial break, I checked my Twitter a bit, but when the show was back on, my sister came back and spotted me using Twitter, she yelled and then I ran away to my bedroom upstairs... There’s a lot that happened after that and either I can’t remember or I don’t really want to talk about it. Anyways, long after this happened, my family scolded me for who knows how many times I’ve been through this hell, the following weeks I’ve spent my life trying to make alternate accounts just so my sister won’t notice, but she ultimately has.

2015: This is where I finally started to become independent, like I was finally free from using my computer right next to my older sister, it happened like early in the year where I got to watch anime on my own and then watching seasonal anime ever since, starting with the Kancolle anime. (Regardless of what everyone says about it nowadays, I still enjoyed it)

2016: Here is where starting with Batman v Superman is where I had a hatred for critics. Every time a movie came out, they’re rated as trash, but when I saw them, they’re not really trash at all.

2017: This year has become my breaking point and I turned into the person I am today, someone with an absolute vendetta against opinions, I even had to make a post about my problems with them nowadays.

2018: You already know by now what a painful year 2018 was, and I can’t even bother to transcribe pretty much what happened, so I’ll leave my review here.

There were a couple of great moments, but the majority were painful moments after another, but still some positive ones somewhere.

If all my stories from all these makes make you disgusted at me as a human being, you’d better stop getting along with me now.

2019

Alright, time to finally discuss everything that happened to me this year and before we do that, let me give you a small headline of the year overall:

2019 is just as bad, if not, MUCH MUCH WORSE than 2018

Life continues to be a dumpster fire to the point where I’d really like to time travel and just stop everything. one can only dream. Anyways, let’s discuss why 2019 was my worst year yet, starting with:

The worst moments that drove me insane and nearly destroyed my life

For starters, the first two months were a hell of a rough start with my usual problems with my obsession with personal opinions and lack of progress in my novel; as for the latter, I had my older sister give me feedback on a few elements, but she later suggested me some ideas I’m not super comfortable at all, like not using real locations, nationalities, etc., literally make the entire world of my novel fictional, I had told her to not make me ruin my baby any further, she replied “good luck”, so I gave up on talking to her on my project for good.

Then in late March, one of the most heartbreaking incidents I’ve ever witnessed was that artist LOLICEPT and all the harassment he went through by one or two people thinking that one of his pictures was a poorly timed joke for the earthquake. I wasn’t aware of this until I saw hews tweeting about it, I was wondering what’s going on and I was looking at replies of that tweet hews made about LOLICEPT.

Then, I started tweeting thanking hews about a bit of context, while he wasn’t like 100% sure first, I thought that it was still something of a clue. Someone got in our conversation saying that they’re writing a thread of what’s happening and I was on board with the idea, I waited a little while and the document went live, I read the whole thing and I couldn’t help but feel heartbroken about what happened.

There was like a lot of shit that happened, but later on, I noticed that LOLICEPT was still active on Pixiv under a new name: Belko, he started like a day after the incident happened and deleted his old LOLICEPT accounts and I was late into that. Then on May, I noticed that he had a Twitter too, I thought he wouldn’t return to Twitter anymore but now he has, now my life seeing LOLICEPT again, even with a new name, is all I need, and I’m glad he’s still drawing which it’s the most important thing... although I have a complaint and I made a thread about it, but regardless, I’m glad he continues to draw, that’s it.

Now, there’s another issue that happened to another artist, I saw this tweet where it was an artist named kun0 and his girlfriend insulting DreamNekoTV’s art style live on Twitch, and that is not something you should do, you do not criticize artists like that. As someone who hates criticizing art and artists (well, I do have my rights to criticize whatever they make sometimes, I vent them out on my private server, but I do have a rule of NOT criticizing right AT them or anything; Okay, maybe art critique should still exist, but not like this, okay?), I just really can’t stand people criticizing whoever artist and their art style and stuff, because, well, that’s their art style and they all try their best (that is part of why I was never fond of the Saberface jokes on the Fate/Type-Moon community, same face disorder jokes is not something that should be ridiculed). This backlash was very big that not only fans, but even creators like Jacksepticeye, DrLupo, Joey The Anime Man, and many others have expressed disgust over this, and with that, DreamNekoTV has gained over 40k followers at the time (Right now she sits at ???k at the time of uploading this post).

So 2019 wasn’t the best year for artists.

With the kun0 controversy, I wish it had a much MUCH bigger impact, not only for the art community, but like the entire world as well, for non-artists like the creators I mentioned above have expressed.

But wait, things get a lot WORSE in the art community!

An artist under the name @Naju075 made this picture of Nessa and there’s nearly a thousand comments, most of which are people talking shit about “neSSa iS nOt BlAck eNOugH” or something like that, then there’s people who of course defend the artist, telling the artist to ignore the haters and even a meme of the art police who think they are vs who they are in reality (the former is they’re being like normal cops and “making things right” and the latter they’re straight-up clowns). This kickstarted a running gag amongst the art community where artists would occasionally make pictures of Nessa with intentional different color skins, including one from BOW with a rainbow Nessa, and even one from hews with a completely white Nessa intended to bait.

But that isn’t the worst of all, the next thing I’m going to discuss is the grandest worst thing from the art community yet:

Tutorial artist Manga Materials had posted a “Difference on a beginner and a pro’s line strokes” tutorial (which you can see on her Pixiv Fanbox now), this had caused controversy by a couple of assholes (Here are the culprits compiled by Andyface) were harrassing her because they thought her tutorial was “offensive” for the “beginner/pro” part. This harrassment was so bad that Manga Materials herself lead to close her English Twitter account for good, and she’ll continue doing tutorials on her Pixiv Fanbox account. She still has her Japanese Twitter account but she’s taking a break from it for a while and continue her work on Fanbox.

(Messages from her Fanbox: 1, 2. (Even though that second one is similar, but there’s still a different message in there))

This was the second artist scandal that pissed me off so grandly, it breaks my heart seeing artists suffering like this. I wish I could continue supporting her and see her tutorials, but I hate Pixiv Fanbox because it won’t let me use my debit card, and her subscriptions can be... quite expensive to say the least.

Like the LOLICEPT incident, as I mentioned that Manga Materials had deleted her Twitter, I don’t want to judge her decision, especially for a very sensitive person, I just would really like to see her pictures archived or anything. We’re going back to square one with the archive thing I mentioned with LOLICEPT above. (I wouldn’t like to be repetitive)

There’s another artist controversy that happened on early July, but it isn’t much about harrassment, it’s about plagiarism. Sky-Freedom had posted an Oneshota series titled “Rich Thots” starting on January this year (or late December because there are some pictures that Sky-Freedom hasn’t posted on Twitter; and the series wasn’t explicitly called Rich Thots, but the first pictures had “rich_thots” as the filenames so people took that as the series’ name), I never got to see the NSFW pictures from his Patreon until late June, I managed to save every picture right on time. Then, on July 1st, I checked my mail and I saw a picture Sky-Freedom posted, then I visited his Patreon... and every single of the JK oneshota pictures are gone. Sky released his apology and I was utterly shocked. It turns out that the first picture Sky made was a straight-up copy from a similar picture made by an artist called Shinjiro (@shnr2626/@shnjr4545). To think that Sky-Freedom himself would copy from another artist... This is hard to believe.

I want to keep supporting Sky-Freedom, but at the same time, I don’t want to anymore. Not because of the fact he plagiarized, I want to keep supporting him but I can’t even bother to care for his other content, such as Tejina Senpai and Azur Lane doujins which he sold at C96 like fire.

I wanted to ask Sky and Shinjiro about it but Shinjiro blocked me on Twitter (at least he blocked me from his talk account, I’m still following his art account fine), my obsession was so great that I even went so far on making a Twitter account (It was originally @JKOneShota but I changed it to @SkyOneShotaFan to be more a direct reference to being a Sky-Freedom JK oneshota fan account) to try to spread word and try to make both artists to communicate each other a lot more with the help of my feedback as to what I believe in the pictures themselves, unfortunately the account hasn’t met my expectations on spreading word and everything like I wanted, I want to delete the account now but I’ll leave it for historical purposes, even though it was meaningless. At least it serves as an informative account or something.

August 28th, 2019, the shnjr4545 Twitter account posted a new tweet, I signed in the Save Rich Thots Twitter account and spammed “ JKおねショタを復活させる” (Revive JK Oneshota) to that tweet, as well as the previous one (Seeing this image just adds fuel to the fire on the controversy) and... got blocked. I thought this was a pure art account and didn’t give a crap on people, yet here I am. 😂

So, yeah, Shinjiro pretty much doesn’t want you to talk about the Rich Thots series at him, or else he’ll block you. Don’t asking him anything about it, just stay silent.

But wait, after all that ranting with Sky-Freedom vs Shinjiro over Rich Thots, on October 7th, Sky-Freedom has revived the Rich Thots series and OH MY GOD, I COULDN’T HAVE BEEN HAPPIER. My heart and faith on Sky-Freedom has completely restored! (So much for that “protest” account. Although from October 7th to November 18th was kind of disappointing but I hope the next few weeks will start to get better. Even with the two new onee-sans featured lately, I wish Sky can reuse the other three girls before the plagiarism bullshit. At least change the two black haired girls a little bit and the blonde gyaru is 100% original)

Another thing I want to talk about artists is how at least two of them have been driving me insane with their art block. Moisture and sub_res, but the latter is the absolute worst). There isn’t really much to talk about with Moisture other than he just complained a lot about his “inability” to draw and stuff, I forgot when it happened but at least he’s stopped complaining. Now, moving on to sub_res and boy, I seriously hate this guy now. He complained literally every single day about his art block, his inability and all that stuff and no matter how many people tell him his art is fine and all that, sub is very neglective about listening to his fans and everything. He’s still going and at this point I really don’t want to follow him anymore if he continues to whine like that.

I seriously shouldn’t underrestimate the struggles artists have because I’m an expectator, but even if I’m a hobbyist artist, I do have my struggles to, but I do deal with them, I’m more confident with whatever I draw than sub does, especially when I don’t have such a mentality when I see some fine ass drawings as utterly shit (well, sometimes but most of the time not really) like sub.

There’s yet another artist drama around early November with artist Piukute062. It all started with him uploading this NSFW looking picture which it became the loading screen for the English version of Azur Lane. When I saw this picture, I thought it was super hot, but it was NSFW enough to be in a Azur Lane loading screen contest, and it happened... but only for an extremely short period.

As soon as the loading screen went live, it got removed out of the blue. Then a day later when Piukute posted a WIP for his next art piece, he stated that it got removed for the R-17 art, which it was expected because I always thought it was NSFW enough to be in the contest, but at the same time it sucks that it got removed. Two days later, he released an apology note to put an end to this drama for good.

Now, I’m glad that he’ll continue to do artwork for Azur Lane, whether fan arts or official, and he’s learned from this drama, but to be honest, I’m kind of conflicted about this...

Seriously, 2019 wasn’t the best year for artists.

Anyways, sorry for dragging all my talk with art and artists, but this shit matters for me as I’m more of a hobbyist artist. Anyways, let’s move on to even worse things that happen in real life.

On May 22nd, I went to Walmart with my mom and older sister, I find the Matchbox Jurassic World cars I wanted to buy, and we did, but when we were checking our bags when we were about to leave and pick the taxi, the cars went missing and we went rushing on searching for them, then a man came and and asked for the cars, and we were glad that this man came to give us the cars, but my mom and sister were in an argument and yelled at me that I need to be more careful, I felt a little sad and broken I had to make a thread about what happened, then my older sister messaged me on Discord and said that her friend saw what I posted and then she apologized. A friend of my sister, okay? Uh, okay.

Before I continue, let me address something: I think around early June or something (It’s been a while and I forgot), I was in the RPG Site Discord server and people talked shit about Persona 5, and pretty much everything they say about the game just hurts my soul so much that I decided to make a TwitLonger post about why I’m practically done with the Persona series for good. Later I made a bit of off-topic rant, going a bit existential and then I went to sleep. Then at 7 AM, my mom just came to my bedroom and she argued with me about the depressive stuff I write, she even went so far that the government was watching me. (Now that I think about it, there’s no fucking way that’s true). Later I checked Discord and my older sister DM’d me saying “My friend saw your stuff again, you need to lay off the internet for a while. You take people’s opinions too seriously.” It seems like my sister’s friend was apparently my stalker, this was starting to feel like 2014 all over again when I got stalked by one of my sister’s old friends. Wow, way to keep ruining my life for my “own good”... Thankfully a while later, they got suspended, and when they got back, they stopped following me. Moving on...

Etika... What happened to Etika was really sad. I don’t really want to talk too much about Etika because I’m scared that I may speak ill of him, but everything that happened to him leading up to his death sucks. Then there was also the Kyoto Animation arson, which that was an absolutely horrendous even to ever happen in Japan in recent years.

Around the same time Etika died, and I shit you not, a few days later, my older sister was hospitalized for her behavior, I don’t really know what happened but I remember hearing my mom having a phone call with the hospital and then i heard my older sister yell “WHO ARE YOU CALLING TO?!” and then they left and she got hospitalized.

Then around the same time, there was quite some problems with a DM group made by one of MysticDistance’s friends. First off, I’ve had quite some rough times with MysticDistance’s DM groups and I seriously feel bad because I hate being the way I am with my opinion vendetta, I can be quite a bitch. Anyways, with this new DM group by one of Mystic’s friends, first thing was that when my older sister was hospitalized, I spent most of my money buying stuff from Steam because it had the Summer Sale at the time (and bought other things that was a little expensive like Wallpaper Engine), then when I noticed my debit card’s wallet (Yes, I finally got a debit card, more details later), I started... e-begging, to get a bit of money so I can get like 300-400 pesos back because I needed the money for the three of us to go see Spider-Man: Far From Home, someone brought up the subject of our finances and one person got really mad at me because when I had shared my PayPal.me link about my financial struggles, someone else shared the other person’s PayPal link about their... cancer donations, and the person who made the tweet linking their PayPal for cancer donation really lashed out at me real bad, later I eventually clarified and all seems went to normal.

There was another situation in that DM group but we’ll get into that later.

Also, let me rephrase that, when my older sister was hospitalized, I spent most of my money I was supposed to use for Spider-Man: Far From Home buying shit from Steam! Man, I can’t get any worse. But don’t worry, my financial struggle quickly got fixed as one of my friends definitely volunteered to give me 20 dollars, which equals 400 pesos! The dude just saved my life.

My Summer vacation was the most boring and shallow vacation I’ve ever had in my entire life.

August came and went, and while the first few weeks were fine, like around the middle of the month, it just turned into absolute hell: Spider-Man leaving the MCU... but then that quickly got resolved a month later.

September came and there really wasn’t much big things to talk about, moving on to October boy, my 20th birthday was the absolute best I’ve had in my life. Still nowhere near the kind of birthday I always want, but I got some surprises and stuff that I’ve always been looking for. I’ll address this later in the positives of the year. Although there’s something I have to say which made me sad, but thankfully happened a day after my birthday: One of the Custom Maid 3D2 artists I’ve liked, kirishima_ss (NSFW, click with discretion) blocked me on Twitter after I tweeted them that yesterday was my birthday. Like... seriously dude? I just turned 20! Did they block me for the sake of not getting suspended from young accounts interacting with mature ones?! Or are they racist?! I kinda want to tell the other Custom Maid 3D2 artists who follow me but I don’t want to get them in trouble and they’ll end up getting blocked too...

Then like at the end of the month, I also got kicked out from the one DM group because I shared one of MysticDistance’s tweets saying something about popular series and whatnot, I asked what do they think and everyone proceeded to give answers like “I don’t care” and such. Me bitching out, I was like “...Really? Try to put some more heart to it” and one of the guys used me as an example of if a series is popular I kinda get angry with opinions and something like that, I asked that if that was really necessary to use me like that, and then I noticed that I got kicked out of the group out of the blue. I asked SAL about it and it appears that one of the people who was in the chat blocked me, I immediately thought of this one person and she did indeed block me. Well, okay, I always had the feeling she hated me anyways. (ROT13 message incoming)

Ebfr naq Wnevq, vs lbh obgu ernq guvf, ab, V'z abg tbvat gb haoybpx lbh. Jryy, V qvq sbe gur fnxr bs lbh ernqvat guvf, ohg bapr lbh qb, lbh'yy creznaragyl erznva oybpxrq sbe gur erfg bs zl yvsr orpnhfr V qba'g jnag gb frr lbh nalzber.

Wnevq, lbh'er fbzrgvzrf qvssvphyg gb gnyx jvgu, ohg Ebfr, V'z fhcre fpnerq bs lbh xabj gb gur cbvag jurer V ernyyl pna'g nccebnpu lbh ng nyy, V nyjnlf unq gur vzcerffvba lbh fgnegrq gb ungr zr rire fvapr gur gvzr V r-orttrq, naq abj lbh qb ungr zr naq lbh whfg xvpxrq zr bhg bs gur QZ tebhc, irel sbaq bs lbh gb trg evq bs crbcyr yvxr zr, V ernyyl tbg bire lbhe areirf jvgu gnyxvat nobhg gur fnzr vffhrf V unq sbe gur ragvergl bs gur lrne be whfg orvat n cynva nffubyr.

V qba'g ernyyl pner vs V'z xvpxrq bhg bs gur QZ tebhc abe V jnag gb erwbva, V jnf trggvat gverq bs frrvat zl Zrffntrf gno trggvat gur 1 vpba rirel qnl. Fb ybat.

November went by and nothing very big, but I have to say, and this isn’t much of a positive nor a negative thing but I need to address this here, on par with the first paragraph of this segment: When I opened Chrome and started checking on my WordPress site for my project and under my pen name, I came across two which were posted on October and I really have never noticed it in a month. The first one was just a guy saying “Hype!” because he was intrigued with my project, but the second comment from the same guy... was quite a long harsh feedback I’ve gotten so far. (Not the first or the most unhelpful (although it kind of is) but come on). The only feedback I genuinely care for my future as an author is I want grammatical issues, narrative issues maybe so I want everyone to give me suggestions on what do I do with certain characters I’m not sure about, but issues about the concept?

Let me real about this, the only kind of feedback I care about are grammatical issues, narrative issues maybe because I want to fix some character backstories and other things I’m not really sure with, but issues with the concept and everything? I don’t give a shit. Can’t there ever be some liberties with having to make some things without considering too much backstory or anything?

Oh, I almost forgot to tell something from November, I FINALLY GOT MY PS4!!! Though... the outcome didn’t turn out as hype and peaceful like I wanted. My mom and my older sister started arguing because mom used all of my sister’s money, and my sister got aggro. After seeing my mom and sister argue, my mom told me to come with her to go back home, but I turned and walked away from her and I said “I’m not going because you’re useless”. But then, I immediately felt bad and tried to search my mom around the plaza, but whatever, I decided to go home once and for all while my older sister was still hanging around in her own.

Later that day, my sister came back home, she and I finally set up the PS4 and I started playing Dark Souls 3 (Yes, I now understand how Git Gud feels like), but then mom came back home and she and my sister started arguing again, they even went so far to return and sell the PS4 back, then I (tried really hard to) pillow yelled that they were gonna sell the PS4 as soon as we bought it. But then, the next day, all got resolved and it turned out to be my sister’s fault for something. I have no idea what just happened, but hey, we’re not selling the PS4 anymore!

Seriously, my mom and sister are incredibly stupid, I always think their chemistry sucks. I wish either of them are dead already if this kind of shit continues to happen.

Anyways, moving on. December came and went, and the biggest thing that first happened and must talk about: The Game Awards. This was the biggest waste of time I’ve ever been, and the absolute worst one yet. The only things that I cared about were the No More Heroes 3 trailer (which I’ll talk about later), DMC5 winning Best Action game, and Death Stranding winning a couple of awards (I’m truly disappointed that it didn’t win GOTY, but at least it was something), everything was maximum sleep.

Anyways, Christmas came and I got some decent gifts: I got me a fluffy blanket, a new wallet and 500 pesos from my aunt. I got a new bath coat and a wristband from my mom. They’re good gifts but they certainly don’t top last year’s Christmas gifts where I got a new phone and Spider-Verse. (Speaking of which, I wanted to buy the Spider-Verse wristband but mom didn’t want me to because she thought “nobody wears wristbands”, and somehow she changed her mind with the one she just gave me. Now I need a ring so my hands look cool). I hope next year I get much better gifts, something crazier and expensive, though I might be asking for too much. Same with my birthday. But hey, at least the chocolates are always a nice side-gift (?) to get. (We always get bags full of various chocolates for Christmas, and got one for my birthday too)

This last paragraph wasn’t so much of a negative thing as it is more for positive, and this category is more like a long telling of my life in general throughout the rest of the year anyways.

And now we’re finally here, New Year’s day and, what else? You’re reading this post talking about my life throughout the decade and my long 2019 review.

Seems like there’s nothing else to discuss, so I think we’re done talking about the mostly negative things that I’ve been through in my entire life this year. But we’re just getting started...

The positives

For the most part I have pretty much discussed a lot of very negative things that happened in my life, but I had to do it so I can get it out of my way and I want people to understand what I’ve been going through in my life this year. It may or may not be worth getting sympathy over something that’s always my fault and stuff that is common in life, but at times it really drives me to give up on achieving my dreams and kill myself, but now the entire year wasn’t that bad like I think it is, so let’s discuss my biggest positives:

Starting around January, I finally got to have my own debit card and that seriously changed my life... For the better and for the worse. You see, the one thing I always do with my money is spending over 100 pesos on supporting artists, mainly on Fantia every month(Sometimes on Patreon when their pages are the ones that take away my money instantly, I’ve seen some that don’t really take away the moment I subscribe to one of their tiers), I also bought porn illustration CG sets in DMM FANZA. At some points, I went into a serious financial struggle. So yeah, I pretty much always spend my money with porn every month. I kind of wish I could try to save my money a bit, but sometimes, the Fantia artists’ content is too good to ignore them (Some pages have their contents posted limited for a month, others are unlimited).

I haven’t spent my money only on porn alone, I also bought games on Steam, especially during the Summer Sale. I bought various Valve games, Melty-Blood, etc. Even long after the Summer Sale, I managed to buy Killer7, Saya no Uta and Custom  Order Maid 3D2 (English Steam).

Man, my debit card is my best friend, I can finally start buying stuff and supporting artists I really care about, though the only problem is that I want to support artists on Pixiv Fanbox but Pixiv (Yes, all of Pixiv) won’t allow me to use my debit card at all. Sometimes Google Play is for some reason broken because when I try to buy stuff from Fate/Grand Order and Azur Lane, I always get an error despite putting my information correctly, but I hate Pixiv the most because they definitely strictly want credit cards. Sure, I can still use PayPal to support artists on Fanbox, but there’s no way anyone would ever give me money on PayPal.

Another best thing that happened in my life is that I finally achieved one of my long gaming dreams, I finally own a PS4 after years! Though, like I said, the outcome turned out grim, but still, I finally own a PS4 after so god damn long! My first PS4 games are Dark Souls 3 (We bought it along with the PS4 from some promo in the RadioShack we bought the PS4 from), Devil May Cry 5 (I never expected my older sister to buy DMC5 from Amazon a few days after buying the PS4 already), and lastly Death Stranding in December. November was basically Buen Fin (Mexico’s less chaotic Black Friday), so that’s how we got the PS4 after so long! (Though given how much I play DMC5 and Death Stranding lately, I don’t think I’ll ever touch Dark Souls 3 ever again). Man, I really hope I get enough money to buy so many releases we missed over the years!

About my novel I always wanted to make... Well, don’t really get me started on it. I still haven’t started publishing chapters of it at all. But still, early this year, I started making accounts with my pen name my older sister come up (I told her that I want her to help me out but as her feedback grew ludicrous, I gave up and decided to follow what I want to make myself), I’ve also been making a site with Wix, but several months later, I gave up with Wix and decided to make another one with WordPress.com and it’s so much better.

Even if I haven’t started publishing my novel’s chapters, at least I have been trying to write some of the prologue alone! So that’s something, I guess...

One of the best things that has happened to me on Twitter so far is that I’ve been getting followed by a few Japanese illustrators, but mostly Custom Maid 3D2 artists, and I can’t believe I happened to be friends with at least two who I really like talking with the most. Not only that but some also made collab pictures using my OCs and boy, I couldn’t be any happier. (See the collabs here, NSFW). This is how it feels like when having your favorite artists follow you but they also make pictures of your OCs. I’m very grateful that these Japanese artists are following and even talking to foreign nobodies like me, let alone Mexican.

Oh yeah, there’s also the fact that I’m attending fine arts school now, but it isn’t my best positive thing, I honestly feel mixed about it because my mom forced me to go to school again after a year being a NEET. But then, around earlier December, I got some scolarship money and just when I was thinking that I wanted to give up on attending this school after a year, the money just convinced me, so I think I have to stay a little longer, I guess...

And now, it’s time for the one big speech I want to make so my soul can finally be clean and set free once and for all!

My current mental health and trying to get my last laugh on everyone

As you probably might have guessed, my long struggle of dealing with people’s opinions and criticisms is never going to stop. No matter how much you tell me to ignore people with what they say and still try to like what I like, no matter how much how much you’re gonna tell me that I need to take a break from the internet for a while, none of that shit is going to happen.

I won’t take off the internet for a while because I don’t know what else to do (besides gaming and other things), I’m gonna get bored to death and there’s a lot of things that makes me happy, being fan arts and porn.

No matter how much you tell me and I promise to myself that I need to behave myself, I won’t keep my word and I will always continue to make fuss about everything about people’s mentalities when it comes to what they say and everything else in this life.

Everything I was a loner in 2015, as years went on, I’ve started to become more socially active and I have made more friends. But now, I’m not grateful for it. I wish I hadn’t made friends. I wish I remained an absolute loner for the rest of my life.

Let me try to make one last rant and hopefully somebody will understand and I will be free.

I don’t know what the hell is wrong with everyone, everyone always tends to attack some things I really find okay with or for no reason. Everytime I watch something bad, I’m like “Hm, okay, that wasn’t so bad”, and then literally everyone goes way too far by being insecure asses yelling at everything on how offensively bad these things are. I know I had some experience too, but most of the time, I don’t really care, either from fandoms or just general communities that have some things in their interests.

Even if people tell me that they don’t have problems that I like what they don’t, that doesn’t change their hypocrisy, they’re cynicism! It’s not just one person that has a contrary feeling to mine, it’s always, ALWAYS a god damn circle of cynics that I can’t even want to interact with them and get along!

The biggest problem is that even if I were to enjoy what I enjoy and ignore people that they don’t, there are people that are even precious to me, but my hopes and dreams immediately get destroyed the moment they say one bit of negativity around something I hold dear the most in my life and it’s an absolute red flag an absolute offense for me!

Talking about things, for example, Overwatch or even Star Wars with Rise of Skywalker, or even the Fate fandom, pretty much any community is absolute cancer. Even for general communities, hearing and reading what people are saying about stuff you like but then they proceed to say things that they expect you to believe is nothing but a social taboo! There is no fucking way that I’m gonna agree to literally everything you say and my means by disagreeing opinions is always by lifting my voice and fight for it! It’s a social taboo to the point that we’re not even “mutuals” because we have nothing in common!

If you even dare to tell me that you’re not forcing your opinions or anything, then don’t even bother telling me to not force my opinions because that’s what I pretty much want! I want to force my opinions towards people until they give up and admit that I win!

It’s even worse when there are “fans” out there that are just outright bashing things for absolute no reason! If you do that, you’re basically destroying your pride for that series you’re supposed to be into, what it means to you, what it represents you! Sure, I may have some issues with certain things, but at the same time, I don’t really have problems with anything nor I even care to think or even agree to anyone with whatever bullshit they say. I don’t give a shit whether nothing is perfect, well it is for me and my heart, as long as I have fun or don’t have problems, that’s it!

People think they’re fans of a certain franchise they represent, but no! Why can’t anyone become real fanboys to the point that they’re more like blind fanboys like me where I tend to support literally anything regardless of some situations!

It’s even dumber that there are people asking for people to make “good” things or anything that they think it’s “good”. First of all, please for the love of god, define “good” because you clearly have no idea what do you even mean or even want. If you think you want people to make “good” things as a general principle of life, you’re dead wrong! There’s no way anyone would ever make “good” things or whatever you want, instead, you might be thinking that the good stuff you want is stuff for you. So stop abusing the word “good” as a means of a principal rule for every creator to make, and instead try to find some things that you may find interesting, things that speak to you, by yourself!

The worst thing yet is that people abuse their opinions as “facts”. Like, seriously?! You do not use your opinions like that and call them “facts”, no way in hell anyone will ever believe you!

I always thought that people expressing their opinions by text is just harmful for me but I’m sure if anyone are able to speak it out by voice, then I wouldn’t have any trouble, but voiced opinions are no different because of the god awful tones people make with their voices! (This is part of why I don’t like watching The Unreal Bruhcast anymore)

So from now on, I don’t really care about pretty much everyone’s opinions. Not from friends (Belsheber Rusape, Pixelbuster), not from family (my older sister), not from YouTubers (Jacksepticeye), not from artists (Akai Riot), anyone! I’m really sick of anyone voicing their opinions, mostly expressing hate for everything I’m curious of, and what I hold dear the most, because I hate everyone, I really hate everyone so much!

You people have failed me! You have failed me! As friends! As mutuals! Everything! I have thought really high of you but then you always blew everything up the moment you start talking shit about the stuff I hold dear the most! I don’t want to be with you anymore! You always try so hard in trying to convince me by heart to ignore whatever bullshit people say with your empty words! Either that or I will seriously never learn and I will continue to talk shit right back at you!

By the way, @BrinkOfMemories/@BrinkArtist was one of the pioneers for developing my hatred because, my lord, every time I read their opinion tweets, they always gave me an absolute headache and I want to punch them so bad!

Now, let’s talk about my desire and my future of becoming a creator (artist, author, etc).

Every time I see people talking shit about stuff like Kojima’s writing, or any kind of poor writing people talk about, I always think that I would like to walk away from becoming a writer. why? Because I know nothing about the most basic things of “good” storytelling!

Seriously, who the hell do people think they are? They think they’re trying to be better than most of the creators (artists/writers/game devs, etc) are trying to be and what they make? Do they seriously can even understand the thought process of what people tend to make? Why do people always be like “This franchise needs to be this, the core” and all that shit. And what’s with all this “These characters need to be relatable to a lot of people”, “this story doesn’t follow the core of the original“, “this story is predictable”, like, what is all that garbage vocabulary?! This is why there’s no creative freedom anymore!

Not a single fan is even civil with the creators they respect anymore! Nobody really thinks what it’s like to be the creators they love and hate like I do, as someone who wants to get in the entertainment industry in some way! They can’t even think what it feels like to be the creators they inspire/aspire to be!

You think people like you who think they’re better than most creators do and even go so far by fixing some of their works because they’re incredibly flawed and all that shit, to be somebody but the fans themselves, they don’t! They think that people should make stories or anything and expecting them to be great instead of developing any sort of trust and cofidence and even try to be more hyped to check their works out regardless of quality, and then let everyone have their creative freedom!

I’ve had some really harsh feedback where in my project I want to make so bad that I tend to draw characters only to be shoved in the story by just showing them off and don’t have any real purpose, I don’t really give a shit! I’m just trying my best to figure out what kind of characters do I want to make or whatever! This is the kind of feedback that affects me so god damn much to the point where I seriously try to give up on making my project a reality! When that shit happens, I always think that I should give up in making my project beacuse nobody deserves to see my masterpieces I have in mind, my magnum opus I’ve been trying to develop for years! All because of your stupid intellect and you seriously think you have the means to make a “great” story with great storytelling, memorable characters, and everything that makes you think they’re so good, why not try to make that story with said things or even try to write my project yourself?! This is my kind of creative freedom I want to have and you people always destroy it! Not to mention that you always ask me what’s it even about and I seriously can’t process to answer what it actually is! It’s nothing but peer pressure!

Then there’s also another feedback I’ve gotten about my project as the “Why this?”, I get asked a lot of “Why...?” because people always want to look for a purpose for literally EVERYTHING and it makes me sick! Sure, I do have some things in mind for some things having a purpose, but dear god, can’t you just let anyone try to make anything without having to think of a story way too much?!

Speaking of which, there’s always these kind of people who are like “This character is my favorite because of their great actions” and whatever, and I’m literally the only one who’s just like picking a character and calling them my instant favorite from their designs alone! I may be a simpleton of a brainlet who thinks that way, but if you’re gonna force your opinion that the character I like is terrible, get out of my sight! Isn’t it something like a friend tells you “Hey, see that guy/girl over there? I think he’s/she’s hot.”, huh?! Shouldn’t it be the same for fictional characters as well?

If there are tons of things you hate in fiction so much, then I’m bound to make the same mistakes as everyone else! Make a gacha or any other things you hate that are being inserted in fiction! And do you have any idea why do creators keep putting things you hate? Because they have creative freedom! They can do whatever the hell they want! Why not let them be?! What about yourself?!

And then things get worse, there’s always a bunch of SJW assholes who always attack artists because they “promote pedophilia” when they draw shotacon/lolicon stuff? That kind of shit ALWAYS happens and it seriously need to stop! You seriously have to think that all what they do is ONLY FICTIONAL, you should keep that up in your god damn asses and never show up with these artists ever again! That’s the thing, aside from writing, why not let anyone draw whatever they want to?! Don’t you people know the rule that you should separate art from artists at all costs?! I draw gore and some dark shit a few times, but that doesn’t mean I’m an emo or edgy person! I just draw what I like!

Oh, and if anyone’s going to attack me because of my insecure opinions like this or even call me a p3d0 because I support shota/loli art (keep in mind this is strictly FICTIONAL), please don’t do that and get out of my sight!

Going back to the topic of my project, the project is absolutely top secret because if I become big enough and even under a different name, if I tell and suggest everything to everyone I know, it’s unlikely but some might make allegations about my rude behavior and how much porn I retweet, I’m basically gonna get cancelled and I don’t, for the faint of heart, I DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN, PLEASE! So for all the people I tell everything about my project, I’m grateful for you to support me, but it’s time that I really wish you should forget about me and everything I said and just wait to get surprised!

After everything I just said, let me give one last fuck you to everyone I’ve grown to meet, like and hate

One last time...

I’m never going to be like you! I have my own reasons and I have better issues to be mad about and they’re not something everyone knows or even cares!

I think I am definitely done discussing what I always want to discuss and I really hope you will understand my feelings. Thank you.

Now, let’s finally move on to...

What to expect in 2020: The year and the decade beyond

Now that I’m finally done making my long review for 2019, let’s now finally talk about what am I gonna expect for 2020, mostly about the year and a little bit of the decade beyond!

Although, to be honest, I don’t really have high hopes on what the year and the decade has in store, because we’ve come to the point where we’re now in the age of extinction, pretty much everything and everyone we loved and care are disappearing, so I’m really scared of the future. Sure, I could move on but sometimes it might be hard thinking back on the stuff and people you used to admire not being there anymore...

Anyways, even if I’m going to lose the people and things I care the most in my life, there are still some new things I’m going to discover, so there’s that.

Now, let’s get started with talking about the 2020 things!

Resolutions

Like I said, I’m not really looking forward with making resolutions because I already know that I won’t be able to keep my word, pretty much anyone else might, but for me it’s kind of a big deal. I’m still gonna try to mention what are my resolutions are, and it’ll probably be the last time I’ll do this, so just in case, here they are. If I seriously don’t accomplish these at the very first days or anything, I’m basically doomed:

Release my novel once and for all: After my long ass rant about my future as an author with my project. LIke I said above, I seriously may still have not been able to start publishing at least my prologue alone, at least I’m still writing like 3/4s of it the best I can.

I’m publishing my novel as a serial on my WordPress site because I don’t want to publish them on Wattpad or Royal Road for one because I don’t have a cover, I don’t have the money to pay for an artist I want to make a cover for me nor I want to make like a placeholder at the moment.

Speaking of the cover, after making my pen name, all I did was asking a lot of Japanese artists if they can draw me a cover for the novel... When I’m already aware that I DON’T have money at all (I was asking for spec work). Thankfully some of the people I asked have turned down and most haven’t responded at all.

Let me tell you a little bit of my project. I used to dream of wanting to make this into a game, maybe an RPG Maker one right now, but I had no idea what to do with RPG Maker nor I think I would like to make my own textures and assets, I don’t think I would have gotten patience. But then about 3 years ago, I wanted to write the script for the game, but that turned out to be more like a character encyclopedia book because I really had no idea what kind of scenarios I wanted to write. Also, most of the character biographies was written by a friend who I regularly about my project with. So I gave up on my dream on making my project into a game. Besides, I don’t think I might ever learn game design or anything.

Then like two years later, I just somehow realized and learned the importance of books getting adaptations and stuff, I decided to turn it into a novel instead mainly because I want people to adapt it. So my dream of wanting my project to become a video game is still there, but all I have to do is make a novel and try to talk stuff like how I want to get it adapted or something.

(I’m not sure if that sounds like the best plan for you, writing a novel only for the sole purpose of getting adaptations, but that’s what I really want, to be honest)

I always thought that writing a novel was going to be easy as pie, but trying to figure out how to write the scenarios, describing them, the action scenes and everything is a nightmare!

I have researched quite a lot about the writing process, and the one advice that stucks to me is “You don’t have to write perfectly, just try to write something no matter if it’s garbage”, and that’s what I’m kind of trying right now.

Anyways, here comes the one thing I’m sure I might regret this, but I think it should be time to talk a LITTLE bit about something from my project.

Do you really want to know the name of the project? Well, I can’t give you the full title, but here’s a working title of sorts:

“Cebwrpg SZJ” (Definitely not used with something XIII)

(This is just to throw people off. The people I talked about my project with of course know what it means. And if someone figures out what it means, I’m probably gonna keep quiet. Although I think it might already exist somewhere...)

I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the project really is about, so I might have to leave you in the dark until I publish the novel and there’s a lot of attention and it becomes big, so that’s all you’re getting for now.

I have quite some ambitious goals which you may or may not believe me and might laugh at me but hear me out: I want to become the new SCP, Type-Moon and Marvel.

I want to be like the SCP because every time I look at the website, the creatures and everything, just truly inspires me, I’d love to do something like the SCP with writing a ton of information about my characters and stuff, but the big problem is that I really have no idea how am I gonna translate my thoughts or things into words to make lengthy profiles or something. I’d like to be like Type-Moon because... all I can think of is doing nothing but Cebwrpg SZJ as much as TM is doing nothing but Fate, but then they’re also toying with the idea of the multiverse, even though they never explicitly ever address if the Fate projects are multiverse because most of them tend to have their self-contained universe, it’s a general comic book concept of multiverse with different incarnations of characters I really can’t stop using the comic book things with Fate. Lastly, I’d like to be like Marvel because, we’re going full circle with the multiverse talk, but I’d also like to be like the MCU (Pretty much everyone else is) with shared universe and everything galore. Although for me, it’s not just going to be MCU, it’s also going to be more like the Disney/Pixar Universe theory. I just like shared universes, okay?

I would also love to become a Virtual YouTuber, just to conceal my identity and hide my public appearance, but at some point, I would still like having public appearances in conventions or any sort of these events anyways. The kind of VTuber I’d like to be is just all by myself, I wouldn’t like to be like Nijisanji or Hololive where it’s everything under corporate control and I wouldn’t like to play a character with features I’m not really sure with, I’d like to make and be my own characters.

This is the real job I want to start doing right now, and there’s no way I’m making my novel writing hobby for free, I really gotta get serious and try to make some money off from donations from chapters and eventually the full book release. (I’m planning to publish it on KDP, by the way)

I just want me and my franchise to become something big for the 2020 decade and for the Reiwa era, I want to be something! I want to achieve my dreams as soon as possible and I’d better make it fast! (I only have 10 years to do so)

Also, here’s my retirement announcement for you to read because there’s a reason why I want to stop writing blogs in Tumblr for good.

Try to behave better and be more respectful: Aside from taking people’s opinions seriously, another recurring problem about my behavior is that I always fight with my mom every time I do my older sister’s homeworks. There’s just really something from her that really frustrates me. I do feel like I really start lifting my voice at her for no reason, but my brain just feels like it’s tired of her shit, or that doesn’t want to be reminded or whatever, so I hope I could try my best at trying to have some more patience, but I still have to fight for it.

Get in shape: I gave up on going to the gym at the beginning of Summer because I wanted to rest and because I was gonna attend the fine arts school I go now because I wouldn’t have the time to go to the gym right in front of my house but I get back home exhausted and I want to save hundreds of pictures I retweet on Twitter and bookmark on Pixiv. But then Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru came and I immediately regret stopped going to the gym.

But it’s fine because it does show exercises you can do at home, and probably the most basic thing I can do to reduce my fat belly when having a decently fit body is doing crunches. Probably 3 sets of 20 will do, and I really hope I can do this every day. Not just crunches, I also want to do planks, but sometimes I’m not really sure if it’s effective or anything because I want to feel that my abdomen is getting burned or something.

Draw regularly until I improve my art drastically: Back in 2012, I used to draw comics mindlessly, now I’m feeling kind of tempted to draw comics again but this time it’s going to be focused with the Busujima Sisters. As much as I think that I would like to do so, I’m not really sure if I’m prepared to be drawing comics again. I mean, I do have ideas for some panels but I need some time to think better on how to structure things out.

I’m mostly a traditional person, but I really get frustrated on how the graphite is like really buried on the paper and I can’t erase anything no matter what, it’s even worse with lighter pencils, so I think I should also try to learn and have more patience with digital art. It drives me nuts on how digital art works, from brush size vs. canvas size (The bigger the canvas, the smaller even the bigger brushes are going to be) and my least favorite, layers.

So I think I might become a full-fledged artist account, not only by doing Custom Maid 3D2 pictures (Though I’m not really sure because I downloaded a torrent with CM3D2 and COM3D2 with most of the DLC and when I open COM3D2, it’s extremely laggy to the point that it might even be unusable for my laptop), but by posting doodles or even fully colored illustrations (if I have the patience) as well. I have posted pictures a little bit, but I think it should be time for me to become a full-fledged regular artist.

Choosing between traditional vs digital is a straight-up 50/50, but it’s going to be worth the try with both if I were to draw literally every day until I run out of sheets from my sketchbook because all I do is just doing doodles, but that’s the point.

Try to retweet less: This is one goal I’m not really 100% sure if I really want to do and I’m still gonna write it and not fulfill it anyways, so I’m just gonna write this here just in case. I’m always retweeting a lot of stuff, mostly porn, and I’m really concerned about my followers who might see the porn I constantly retweet a lot and they see my name everywhere, some don’t really mind but I seriously need to try to stop that habit for a bit.

Although even if I would stop retweeting, liking tweets is no different, I always retweet because I really like going to my profile and see the tweets I retweeted and everything. Retweeting tweets means keeping the person’s tweets to yourself, that’s what I always believed in my retweets. And yes, I’m lazy to go to my Likes page but I always tend to like replies, so they’re going to be a hassle to get through.

Most anticipated releases

It’s finally time to talk about my favorite part of every year, new releases! I’ve seen some stuff aimed for a 2020 release, but I’ve even seen some that are slated for 2021 and beyond, but for now, let’s talk about what this year has to store.

Although, I may vaguely remember what am I looking forward the most, but I’m just going to talk about the ones that comes to my mind first.

Also, better keep in mind that while some things may have their 2020 release dates, delays are always bound to happen, but we still have to count in some things anyways.

Anime:

There’s just so many anime coming out that I think I might have lost track. Sure, you can look at my previous Fall 2019 Final Impressions post to see what are my upcoming Winter 2020 anime, but here are the biggest shows for 2020 I’m excited for.

Attack on Titan season 4: This is going to be the final season of Attack on Titan and we have come a long way for the finale, especially that the manga is going to end soon as well. Don’t worry, this is slated for a Fall 2020 release, so as of the writing and publishing of this post, we have 10 months for S4 to come out, especially when the manga will finish by then. It’s to be determined if it’s going to be a one-cour series or a two-cour series, but what I expect the most is that it should at least adapt the finale, kind of like how Tokyo Ghoul:re the anime happened a while after the manga had ended or something, except Attack on Titan S4 is going to be faithfully adapted of course.

Akira remaster and new TV series: A 4K remaster of Akira is something I’m quite curious on how it’s going to work, but a new TV series is what I’m the most curious. Apparently, the new TV series is being made so it will fully adapt the manga where the film didn’t (the creator directed the film but the manga hadn’t been finished at the time), animated by Sunrise. I wonder if the Akira TV series will capture the original film’s style or something.

2020 sure sounds like it’s going to be the year of Akira, though 2019 was the year Akira (and Blade Runner) is set and then the Taika Waititi live-action film is going to be released in 2021.

Also, with that being said about an Akira TV series that adapts the entire manga, I think we’ve come to the point that we’re getting anime remakes with the sole purpose of adapting the manga to its ending, see Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Fruits Basket 2019. Speaking of which...

Fruits Basket season 2: I haven’t read the manga or watched the original anime, but just with season one of Fruits Basket 2019 alone, I was impressed, so with the second season, I’m looking forward on how will TMS adapt the ending!

Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel III. spring song: At this point I definitely trust Konnichiwa (the Latin American distributor) and of course they’ll bring it to Mexico and Latin America like they did with the first two films so far, I shouldn’t be begging way too hard on wanting to see them. (I am with Promare if it’s gonna happen)

Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: It’s been years since we have last heard of Evangelion 4.0 ever since the film got delayed because Hideaki Anno was directing Shin Godzilla, now, the film is finally happening.

This is the one film that I’m sure fixated on wanting for Konnichiwa to bring it, I see Konnichiwa as the kind of distributor that brings big franchises and big hits and Evangelion is such a big franchise for another distributor to bring the film to Mexican and Latin American theaters!

UPDATE - February 1st 2020: As of now, Konnichiwa have announced the following movies they’re going to release throughout the year:

Violet Evergarden

Konosuba

Human Lost

Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel III. spring song

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising

So... None of them are either Promare or even Evangelion 3.0+1.0, at this point I truly lost trust with Konnichiwa, they definitely lost me. Although it’s good that they’re still bringing Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel III and My Hero Academia, but no Promare or Evangelion? Really? Come on! Human Lost of all movies?! Who thought it was a good idea?!

Keifuku-san: As of the writing of this post in December 30th, this is a surprise I really never expected to see! I saw Marissa Lenti’s tweet about “new Tatsuki anime” and the tweet she was quoting was of the Crunchyroll news where Tatsuki teases a Keifuku-san anime, and I freaked out because I’m excited that he’s already working on a new anime already based on his shorts. The teaser was posted two days ago and I seriously hate that I missed it!

With the success of Kemurikusa 2019, I think we’re seeing some sort of a post-Kemono Friends reinassance with Tatsuki by making remakes of his old classics, except Keifuku-san is his most recent short but I’m glad he’s turning into a full-fledged series, I want more Tatsuki! More Tatsuki More Tanoshii! (This is the polar oppososite of “No Tatsuki No Tanoshii” and I hope everybody gets to make a similar phrase)

UPDATE - January 4th 2020: That mystery anime from Tatsuki turned out to be Hentatsu and it’s out today. What in the world did Crunchyroll think it was Keifuku-san though the box did imply it might have been Keifuku-san. But it’s fine, Hentatsu going from shorts to a full-fledged TV series is cool too!

Golden Kamuy season 3: Just when I thought there wouldn’t be anymore Golden Kamuy, it is indeed happening and I’m happy that it is!

Zombieland Saga season 2: I’m impressed with the first season and I’m happy the second season is happening and I hope it’d better pay off the final episode’s teaser, that teaser is just too good to pass it up!

Games:

No More Heroes 3: Easily my #1 most anticipated game of the year! I’ve been a long time No More Heroes fan and I’ve been waiting for a third No More Heroes game for so long! Although the one big thing I’m skeptical for is the soundtrack, since there’s a new composer, being Nobuaki Kaneko, and it’s no longer Masafumi Takada and Jun Fukuda (Though he’s still working with sound design, so that’s a plus), I’m pretty sure the soundtrack will be nowhere near as good as the first two games, and hearing the composer’s tracks in Spotify, my skepticism grows stronger, but we’ll see. Overall, I’ve been waiting 10 years for my whole life for NMH3 and it’s finally happening!

I just need to get a Switch as soon as possible so I can start playing it on launch, but getting a PS4 was my long time biggest priority. So I really hope Suda will do the same with Travis Strikes Again by releasing NMH3 on PS4 and PC!

Resident Evil 3 Remake: With the success of RE2, they immediately started developing Resident Evil 3 Remake, and with the trailers released, I’m absolutely impressed, and it uses the same gameplay as RE2 Remake. Also, Remake Nemesis is looking good. Though, honestly I’m not really sure about the nose, but if there’s one thing that I really love about Nemesis, is his teeth.

Tsukihime remake: The Tsukihime remake is the most infamous and meme-worthy vaporware from Type-Moon that it’s not even a contest between it and Half-Life 3, if “See you in 10 years” thing may be true, then there’s already signs of its existence right now, with confirmation of test plays. So there might be hope that we’re finally going to see something about the Tsukihime remake in the light of day, and even a release date eventually!

(I’m a terrible historian, I don’t really know much about the Tsukihime remake’s history)

Also, when there are news about Tsukihime Remake’s release date, I’m going to play the original! (As long as I finish Saya no Uta because I need to finish that one first)

Half-Life: Alyx: It still may not be Half-Life 3 as mentioned with the Tsukihime remake, but I’m surprised that Valve is finally doing something with their old IP after all these years, it may be a VR but it’s still going to be something interesting. I hope it’s going to kickstart a new reinassance era for Valve if they continue to make amazing games again after Half-Life Alyx, hopefully we won’t see any repeat with Artifact.

Death March Club: This is the very first project Tookyo Games (new studio by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi) is releasing. Looking back, I was really not aware that Danganronpa V3 was going to be the end of the Danganronpa franchise for good and it makes me sad, there’s so much potential for V3′s univverse to be developed, but it appears that this might be it. I really hope Spike Chunsoft will do something about Danganronpa in its 10th anniversary, hopefully something new and good and not just some lame celebration messages or whatever, I want a new game or a new anime, something new Danganronpa! ;_;

Anyways, even if there may not be any more Danganronpa, I could still follow Kodaka‘s new developments with his new projects (along with Uchikoshi). Teased back in 2018, there are two projects featuring Rui Komatsuzaki’s art, one is a new game and the other one is a new anime by Pierrot, and I’m seriously the most excited for these two!

Movies:

Black Widow and The Eternals: I haven’t kept track with the upcoming Marvel releases right now, so I’d better keep a careful eye out for them. Not only Black Widow and The Eternals are coming out, there’s also going to be the MCU TV series in Disney+, like Falcon and Winter Soldier and WHAT IF...?. I’m especially intrigued for Falcon and Winter Soldier right now.

And for those who are like “Welp, time to stop caring about the MCU because all they want us to do is use our money for the movies and for paying Disney+” when there were news that Kevin Feige says that the Disney+ series are going to be crucial for the MCU, fuck you. (I’m talking to you, Pixelbuster and Macuelos. You boomers)

As for Black Widow, I’m concerned that it’s going to be Captain Marvel 2.0, not only for having SJW trolls (which that wasn’t the biggest deal for Captain Marvel), but rather even normal people bashing it out for its quality, the biggest thing people have criticized at the first trailer so far is Taskmaster’s costume where it looks nothing like the comics. That shit is seriously none of my concern and I really think Taskmaster looks really cool, it reminds me of Crossbones and that’s what makes their military aesthetics so special. (And please swallow that)

Venom 2: I’m supper happy that, regardless of its critical reception, the first Venom movie became a financial success and a cult hit with Eddie x Venom shippers. With that being said about making a lot of money, I’m really happy that they’re working on Venom 2 right away! That post-credits teaser with Carnage is just too good for a sequel to not be made!

I don’t care if it’ll “improve” the first film, I do think Venom 2 is going to be “better” but in a sense of topping the original because of Venom and Carnage, not because of improving the first film’s issues and all that shit! Give me more Venom movies and Venom vs Carnage and I just want the second film to be at the same pace as the first film which my older sister and I loved it!

I really hope the film will still come out in October, especially that in October 2020, my birthday is going to be on Sunday, which that means I’ll finally get to see a Venom movie DIRECTLY on my birthday just like with Joker this year!

Morbius: This wasn’t high on my anticipated movies list, but the trailer was released on January 13th 2020, I must talk about it now: The trailer looks interesting and I’m definitely going to see it, but the biggest surprise yet is that there’s Michael Keaton’s Adriam Toomes/Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming at the very end of the trailer. Seems like this is definitely setting up some small ties to the MCU with the Spider-Man characters, and it all depends if Tom Holland’s Spidey will appear in some form with either Morbius or Venom 2, most likely Venom 2 but we’ll see about Morbius.

Wonder Woman 84 and Birds of Prey: 2019 was sure the best year for DC with Shazam and especially Joker, though I’m concerned that the good DC movies period is already going to be over with Wonder Woman 84 and Birds of Prey where people aren’t going to be fond with these films, but I’m still going to see the films regardless. (Especially Wonder Woman 84 because a lot of people had trouble with the first film’s ending smh.)

There’s also going to be major events like the Tokyo Olympics 2020 and I’m curious to see how much of the anime pop culture there’s going to be for global television, but I’m also worried if the way they’re going to handle Comiket without using the Tokyo Big Sight because they are going to use it for the Olympics, and there are also news that they’re removing porn from convenience stores, basically the porn in Japan is being removed for the Olympics, but the biggest thing I’m concerned is that if Comiket 98 taken place in May is going to be the last Comiket for good because I haven’t seen like any news about it and that’s all what the Wikipedia page has, I really hope there’s still more Comiket in the future, even when I don’t really go to Comiket at all because I don’t live in Japan, but I really love seeing artists setting their circles and having their doujins all sold out.

There’s also going to be the Playstation 5, which it may or may not be the best thing in the world to happen right now considering that I just got my PS4 in November, although Sony did confirm that the PS5 has backwards compability with PS4, but then there are also reports that it’s backwards compability with all the previous Playstations and that smells like bullshit to me.

Anyways, I’m definitely not buying the PS5 at launch, I’ll wait in a few years until there are some really interesting exclusives, or even if there devs making new games for the PS5, they’re still bound to be released on the PS3 as well. Just like I did with the PS4, we never bought it at launch and we waited for a long time for cooler releases to get there and that’s where we finally decided on getting a PS4, albeit several years late but whatever.

The PS5 won’t be coming out until the Holidays 2020, so I have an entire year to play with my PS4 and take my best advantage of it, in the meantime, I’ve been playing Devil May Cry 5 and Death Stranding, and hopefully we can get to buy the many other releases we missed over the years.

Ugh, I don’t know what else is coming out in 2020 with different media, but I think that’s enough about my most anticipated releases that I could think of! As time goes on, whenever news about some things pop up, I’m of course going to keep track of those releases!

Conclusion

We have at least reached the end of this long long post I have made yet, I’m sorry if I made you through read all of this insanity, but I really hope you might have skimmed through some parts and read a little bit of the most important pieces, the ones that you find the most interesting.

This was an amazing yet painful but still a fun wild ride with this decade. I’ve had plenty of fond memories and developed lots of new interests, though having lots of suffering in the process, but still, it was a joy to live through out this decade. Can’t wait to see what will the decade have in store. Still not expecting for real life to become the future like we see in pop culture, but I’m sure there’s still going to be some great technological advancements and most important of all, lots of amazing pop culture! (I know lately has been mediocre with neglectful creators and corporates and cringey memes inserted by old men, but who really cares?)

I’m really hoping for a far positive 2020 decade, but as you would expect, countless groups of SJWs attacking innocent artists, scummy corporates, cringeworthy memes and pretty much everything else will remain unchanged.

But regardless, there’s still going to be amazing new things we’re going to discover to love and hate this decade and the Reiwa period!

As I said at the beginning of this post, this is the last post I’m going to make because lately I’ve seriously been getting burned out by writing the same posts and the worst part is that I’m always trying to make them huge and I really have no idea to process these posts. Another reason why is that I want to start focusing on my career as an author, I just need to get over this blogging side to be over and I’m sure it’s going to be even more painful than blogging, but that’s something I really want to focus and don’t want the blogging to get in my way.

As for the future of making posts like these, I’m just going to make like a thread of tweets of my top 10 anime/games/movies of the year with 4 pictures of my top 4 or make a TwitLonger, to make things simple because I’ve really been exhausted on making this post even when I had this MONTHS in the making. Man, I seriously need an agenda so I won’t try to remember certain events that happened.

Anyways, thank you all who supported me over the years and I hope we can continue to support each other out throughout this next decade, whether I succeed with my dreams or not. I love you all. Let’s all do our best, and I so hope I’ll do my best as well, until the day I die!

And just like that, good bye Tumblr. My time is finally done.

UPDATE - February 1st 2020: Nobody is definitely noticing this but every now and then, I’ve been adding some new words into this post. February and I’m still editing this post.

By the way, January was already dismal: I nearly lost my cool with personal opinions again, but my worst nightmare yet is my eternal procrastination. Although I have at least been writing like over 100 words every few days, my constant headache from perfectionism and brainstorming a decent, cohesive and believable story will just never stop.

Not to mention that I haven’t been drawing as regularly like I wanted, and recently, I went back on using my Wacom Bamboo pen tablet and I immediately regret it.

Better not worry, we’re still early into 2020, we only have 10 months to survive and I know I mustn’t rush things, but I really hope I get to be a little more productive as soon as possible.

My Carrd.

[ryukoishida]

Summer 2017 Watchlist First Taste (Sunday to Wednesday Edition)

Summer is here and so is a new season of anime, woohoo! I was initially super excited about several of the shows, but after watching the first episodes of them, I’m still... somewhat on the fence about them. Still anticipating “Welcome to the Ballroom” and “Project Altair” though!

If you’re looking for something in the spring season to watch, I also wrote some not-so-serious reviews here and here. I’ve actually either dropped or am super behind on most of the shows I wrote about, but I highly recommend “The King’s Avatar/Quan Zhi Gao Shou” (technically a donghua), “The Royal Tutor”, and “Kado: The Right Answer” for a new series to start. 

Listing from shows that have the most potential:

Nana Maru San Batsu (aka. 7O3X) | Fastest Finger First 

A sports anime about quiz shows! It’s actually better than it sounds, I promise (except for that frustratingly cliché panties scene but I think it’s just a one-time gag so I’ll forgive them). The first episode introduces us to protagonist Pidge Koshiyama, who’s a bookworm, is super shy/anxious and has no friends. Upon entering his first year of senior high, he was introduced to the school’s Quiz Circle during club presentations, and he realizes that all the books he’s read as a child and teenager can finally be put to good use because as it turns out, even though he’s slow on the buzzer, he can answer some of the most difficult questions. There’s also the weird/over-enthusiastic megane club president, the takes-quizzes-super-seriously girl whose voice sounds like a young boy (I think the seiyuu is new, so I can’t tell whether she’s just really bad at voice-acting or they just... mis-cast her). The first half is protag intro, blah blah, lots of self narrative, but the second half, which is like a sample quiz show, is quite exciting. I think I like where the show’s going, so I’ll definitely keep watching this.

Knight’s & Magic

If you want to watch giant fighting robots, you might want to give this show a shot, though definitely don’t expect it to be anything like Gundam. Protag Kuroda, who’s obsessed with mecha and is a computer engineer working in modern day Japan, got into a car accident and is reincarnated into this fantasy world in which people can pilot giant robots called Silhouette Knights through magic fuel. I’m hoping the protag will grow up soon cuz I don’t know if I can stand watching a show that’s entirely about a robot-obsessed 12-year-old boy (yes, he’s a boy), even if he is kind of a genius. The plot is nicely paced so far and the action scenes are nicely animated. I don’t really care about any of the characters yet (which is usually a bad sign for me LOL), but we’ll see. 

Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun | Cleanliness Boy! Aoyama-kun

Sort of reminds me of “Sakamoto Desu Ga”, but I’m hoping it’ll be better because the gags in “Sakamoto” got boring and repetitive after about 4 episodes in. Aoyama is a genius soccer player who plays for Japan in the U-16 tournament and has lots of passion for the sport; he’s also a bit of a germaphobic and will not come in contact with other players during a game or move around the field when it’s rainy and dirty because eww mud on shoes/clothes, no thanks. Not quite sure whether this will be entirely comedy with some sports elements or an equal mixture of both; I’m hoping it’ll at least have a good plot to go with the laughs. 

Youkai Apartment no Yuuga na Nichijou | Elegant Youkai Apartment Life

A show about the everyday life of a high school boy who can see spirits and his neighbours living in a creepy-looking though sort of fancy apartment: girl exorcist who kicks butt, author voiced by the ever awesome Ishida Akira, and various other youkai which I’m excited to know more about. Protag also has a best friend (voiced by Nakamura Yuuichi) but I’m... not quite sure about the part he plays in the story yet? But the OP shows many other interesting minor characters as well, and these days, I’m like 99% more invested in minor characters anyway so it’s all fine. 

Isekai Shokudou | Restaurant to Another World

I feel... very, very conflicted about the first episode. I love the premise that it’s about a restaurant that can be linked to different fantasy worlds, so the human chef (with the incredibly boring character design) who’s also the owner of the restaurant is serving creatures of different universes, one of which is a dragon lady who craves his beef stew. You can tell the show is tailored to mostly the male audience; all the attention has been spent on the female characters’ designs and ohmylordy when they start doing the dragon lady’s transformation from her dragon form to her naked human form... the details they put in drawing her body... fucking incredible. The second half of the episode saved itself a little when it introduces the little demon girl who got kicked out of the human city in her world and is starving, so the chef took her in, gave her a warm meal and a job (damn, somebody give ME a nice meal and a job - I wish it was that easy in real life). If they can keep the boobs in check, I’d be willing to keep watching this.

Dive!!

I don’t know why but I was half expecting this new diving anime to be like “Free!” in some ways. Please don’t make that same mistake as I did, or you’ll be sorely disappointed... like I did. It’s such a shame because I love watching diving as a sport (Canada has a few decent divers after all, so I enjoy the diving events during the Olympics), but the first episode already has two big no-nos that personally offended me: a) shitty, wishy-washing middle-schooler protag who has no personality other than his obsession with diving and his diving boyfriend senpai, and b) unnecessary romance with the whole girl likes protag, and protag agrees to go out with her and then proceeds to ignore her but girl never gives up (I’m getting second-hand embarrassment watching it, tbh). It does have two things going for it: a) good animation for the diving scenes, and b) an all-star cast featuring Kaji Yuki as protag, Sakurai Takahiro as protag’s love interest rival/senpai/inspiration, Nakamura Yuuichi, Uchiyama Kouki, Ono Kensho, Aoi Shouta etc etc. Am I gonna keep watching it? You fucking know it. 

Hu Yao Xiao Hong Niang | Fox Spirit Matchmaker

Watched ~15 minutes of the first episode, but it was enough to know that I have negative (not even zero, but negative) interest in this donghua. It’s apparently gotten a decent 7.42 score on MAL (but 2.3/5 on CR), so [shrugs] who knows, maybe it’s just not my cup of tea. Premise: In a world where spirits and humans coexist and can fall in love with each other, there’s a matchmaker service within the spirits realm which can help spirits reconnect with their reincarnated human partners since spirits have a longer life-span. Interesting concept; terrible execution. I got annoyed by the protag; I got annoyed by the little fox girl; I got annoyed by the sexy fox lady. I had to turn that shit off before the half-way point because everything just makes me cringe. Save yourself some time and don’t watch this. 

[fuzzylikesmedia]

Summer anime 2017

 All the summer anime has premiered now, except for Hell Girl season 4 (7/14) and The Reflection (7/22), and I'm going to be away this weekend, so I might not watch Hell Girl until next week anyways. So it seems like a good time to write up some brief thoughts on the shows I watched, which is nearly all of them. The exceptions are:

HiDive exclusives, I didn't want to get another subscription

Netflix shows which won't be available legally for months (fuck you Netflix for that, at least I have the Kakegurui manga)

Sequels I hadn't watched the original of

Symphogear, which hasn't been announced by anyone yet (as of 7/13)

I didn’t actually finish the first episode of all of them, but I tried. 

This ended up super long, because there are a lot of shows.

I’m going to go through these in order of premiere date, anything else is too hard to keep track of. I’ll include a note for the full length shows I didn’t watch as well.

Hina Logi: From Luck & Logic (on Crunchyroll, Saturdays at 12:00 am EDT)

This is a spinoff of Luck & Logic, which I didn’t watch, and I didn’t watch this version either. I really don’t know anything about this, you can check out the reviews on ANN.

Fox Spirit Matchmaker (on Crunchyroll, Saturdays at 9:30 am EDT)

I bailed out of this one less than 10 minutes in. It’s a bad romcom with bad animation, and I didn’t like any of the characters. I can’t recommend it at all, even if you like straight romcoms.

Kakegurui (Netflix, so probably all the episodes will be availabe early October)

First watch the OP (Sayo Yamamoto worked on it) right now: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5sahqn 

I couldn’t actually watch the show, since it’s a Netflix license, but I’ve read the manga up to the latest chapter and I love it! (It’s the source of my icon). It’s very trashy, and often gay. There is a male MC, but he doesn’t really do much, and mostly exists to be the person who gets everything explained to him. Also because we never get Yumeko’s (the female MC) point of view. I highly recommend the manga and the anime.

Fate/Apocrypha (Netflix, it was announced at AX that the first batch of episodes would be available November 7th)

This is yet another Fate show, but I’ve been hearing good things. Apparently the source for this one isn’t written by Nasu, which is a point in it’s favor. I don’t really have much more to say, if you want to get into Fate stuff, I recommend Fate/Zero. I never really got into other Fate stuff.

Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu (on Crunchyroll, Saturdays at 1:00 pm EDT. Also on Anime Strike but why would you choose that over crunchyroll???)

I watched some of Touken Ranbu - Hanamaru last fall, but it didn’t really grab me. I definitely prefer the bloody action of Katsugeki to the slice-of-life comedy of Hanamaru. I also can’t keep track of the huge number of characters the game has, so Katsugeki’s focus on a small number really helps. If you like bloody action, I recommend it. It’s one of my favorites this season.

Symphogear AXZ (no announcement yet, hopefully Crunchyroll)

This is the fourth season of Symphogear, the first 3 are on Crunchyroll. I’m currently part way through the second season. It’s magical girl action with a music focus, and I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would. The premise for this fourth season seems like it could go some bad places (read: could get very transphobic), so be warned. I’d recommend checking out the first season at least, though.

Knight’s & Magic (on Crunchyroll, Sundays at 11:00 am EDT)

This definitely wins a prize for the worst punctuation in an anime title I have seen. That being said, I enjoyed the first episode, but gave up partway through the second. It’s an isekai story based on a light novel, which is not a setup that inspires much hope in me, but I liked that the MC was reborn(?) as a child, rather than simply transported. If you like mecha shows check it out I guess?

Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun (on Crunchyroll, Sundays at 12:30 pm EDT)

This is a comedy sports anime that actually really surprised me. I’m probably not the best person to talk about it, so I highly recommend reading this review at Anime Feminist. I liked it, and I’m currently partway through the 2nd episode, and I think I might stick with it.

Battle Girl High School (on HiDive, Sundays at 12:30 pm EDT)

Not willing to get a HiDive subscription yet, and it doesn’t sound like this show is worth it. If you’re curious, check out the reviews at ANN and Anime Feminist.

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life (on Crunchyroll, Mondays at 11:30 am EDT)

This is a supernatural slice of life comedy, and while it’s not amazing in anyway, it’s not really bad either. If you really like this sort of comedy I’d recommend checking it out, but I’d probably recommend Inu x Boku Secret Service first.

LOVE and LIES (on Anime Strike in the US, and HiDive in some other territories, Mondays at 12:00 pm EDT)

I did not like this show. It wasn’t actually painful to watch, so I finished the first episode, but I will not be watching more. The premise is based on the idea that Japan starts assigning marriage partners when kids turn 16 based on some sort of compatibility in order to fight dropping birthrates. Actually, the show specifically mentions genetic compatibility, and the whole premise has a very eugenics feel to it. On top of that, this setting is being used for a romcom. There are probably some interesting stories that could be told with this setup, but a straight romcom is not one of them. All this being said, I’m definitely watching people’s twitter reactions to the show going forward, because I’m sort of curious what kind of trainwreck this might become.

Restaurant to Another World (on Crunchyroll, Mondays at 2:05 pm EDT)

This show was definitely very nice to look at, but I just couldn’t get invested in it. If you want a peaceful show about a restaurant that opens to a fantasy world once a week, then check it out. My favorite part was the dragon lapping stew from a pot, tiny in comparison to her.

Aho Girl (on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 11:30 am EDT)

(short-form, 13 minutes) Even though this is a short, I still couldn’t make it all the way to the end of the first episode. It’s very 2000′s style super fast comedy, and feels super mean spirited.

Tsuredure Children (on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 11:45 am EDT)

(short-form, 13 minutes) I finished this one, which was mostly cute vignettes about straight highschoolers in love, but the 3rd one made me feel really uncomfortable. Not planning on watching more.

Fastest Finger First (on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 3:30 pm EDT)

This is a show about kids doing quiz bowl, which wasn’t a thing at my school, but this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a math competition anime. The main character was likable enough, though the girl was more interesting. This feels like it might become a girl who is experienced at x teaches boy how to x, and he is the best ever at x, sort of thing. I do want to check out the second episode though. An interesting thing to me was the voice of the girl. She’s apparently a rookie voice actress, and sounds very different from the typical anime high school girl voice.

Netsuzou Trap -NTR- (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 8:30 am EDT)

(short-form, 9 minutes) This show is super super SUPER trashy yuri, and I loved it. I can’t really recommend it, but I’m definitely sticking with it. 

Saiyuki Reload Blast (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 11:00 am EDT)

This is an adaptation of the latest Saiyuki manga. I have never read or watched any Saiyuki before, but I watched this episode. It had a very 00′s feel to it, from the character designs to the dialogue. I imagine that this is the sort of thing that you watch if you already like Saiyuki, or maybe if you miss the feel of anime from the early 00′s. I’m not sticking with it.

Dive!! (on Anime Strike, Thursdays at sometime, anime strike is bad at sharing details)

I wanted to like this show, but it just wasn’t good. It’s very clearly trying to get the Free! crowd, but is hindered by bad animation and boring story. It’s this season’s Noitamina show, by the way. The most notable thing about it for me, was that it actually managed to trigger my fear of heights, which I don’t think has ever happened to me with an anime before. I think it must be because diving (off a 10 ft board) was a real thing I was too scared to do (and probably still am too scared to do).

Convenience Store Boy Friends (on Crunchyroll, Thursdays at 3:05 pm EDT)

This feels like the most boring possible show you could make from it’s title. You could have personified stores, personified products, but instead it’s just a quite boring highschool romance. They don’t even work at a convenience store! They just occasional stop by there! Also the guys working there looked way more interesting than any of the main characters. Possibly the most boring premiere I watched all the way through.

Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (on HiDive, Mondays at 9:00 am EDT)

I didn’t watch this one because it was a HiDive exclusive, but I’ve actually read a lot of good things about it, which is not what I would have expected with that name. Still not worth the HiDive subscription though. You can check out the review at ANN and Anime Feminist.

Made in Abyss (on Anime Strike in the US, and HiDive in some other territories, Fridays at 10:00 am EDT)

This was a super beautiful premiere. It’s a really gorgeous looking fantasy series. It didn’t completely grab me, but I think that’s because it requires me to be in a mode where I can actually give it full focus, which makes it harder to watch. I can’t recommend this show yet, however, because I have heard that the manga goes really bad places. I’ve heard that the first episode already removed some of the skeevy stuff, but I can’t recommend this until I can see where it goes.

18if (on Crunchyroll, Fridays at 10:00 am EDT)

I gave up about 10 minutes into this one. It’s a very dream sequency show, but it doesn’t have the animation quality or pacing to make it work for me. If you like surreal stuff in general, I’d say check it out to see whether it grabs you, but know that it might just feel really boring.

Vatican Miracle Examiner (on Anime Strike in the US, and HiDive in some other territories, Fridays at 11:00 am EDT)

I fucking loved this!!!!! It’s my favorite premiere so far, and I can’t wait for more. It’s not a good show, but it’s super fun. This review at Anime Feminist explains what I like about the show. It has the feel of some of my favorite stuff from the early 00′s, and it’s super campy, and I love it.

Chronos Ruler (on Crunchyroll, Sundays at 3:00 pm EDT)

This is not a good show. It has super bad animation, convoluted plot, overly expository and over dramatic dialogue (ok, half these things were also true of Vatican Miracle Examiner, I admit). I finished the whole episode, but I really have zero interest in watching more. It just isn’t offering anything that other shows aren’t doing better this season.

Altair: A Record of Battles (on Anime Strike, Fridays at sometime)

This is a very good show, but on that I really need brainpower to watch, which means that I will probably drop it at some point. It’s very nice looking, and I love political intrigue, but it doesn’t feel like easy watching. Check it out if you enjoy political intrigue stuff.

Hitorijime My Hero (on Anime Strike in the US, HiDive in some other territories, Saturdays at 11:00 am EDT)

This was decent BL. Not good, but not terrible either. The main couple is a student-teacher relationship, so be warned of that, I guess. It just felt super plain  to me. Also super confusing. The first episode felt like it jumped around a lot chronologically, and it was really hard to understand what order things happened in. I’m not continuing with it.

Welcome to the Ballroom (on Anime Strike, Sundays(?) at sometime)

I watched the early premier of this on Twitch, which had desynced subtitles, which was super annoying. I don’t know if that’s still true of the version up on anime strike, but it’s frustrating that this is still a problem for them. And with a hyped up premiere as well!!! The show itself is a shonen sports anime about ballroom dancing. The character designs are very lanky and weird looking, but I sort of like the style. It just didn’t really grab me. I think I didn’t like the main character enough to care about him. And that I don’t care about ballroom dancing at all.

A Centaur’s Life (on Crunchyroll, Sundays at 10:30 am EDT)

This was a sort of weird show. It starts off with a lesbian kiss, and does a school comedy sort of things for the first half. The second half is that plus world building, which brings in a bunch of weirdly dystopian elements. Like talking about past injustices being illegal. So I’m going to keep on watching this for the little gay bits and to see where the hell it’s going.

Princess Principal (on Anime Strike in the US, HiDive in some other territories, Sundays at 10:30 am EDT)

I really loved this. It’s a spy show about girls, so I’m not at all surprised, but it’s still a nice feeling. The OP has hints of gayness, which is good. And the show in general is a fun spy show. It’s like what I wish Joker Game had been. I really recommend checking this one out. It’s another one of my favorites.

Angel’s 3Piece! (on Crunchyroll, Mondays at 8:30 am EDT)

This most frustrating thing about this is how good is was for a lot of it. Like I wasn’t expecting anything from the summary, but then the first half of the show was pretty neat, and the music was good, but it’s by the author of Ro-Kyu-Bu, which should have told me everything I needed to know. As should the episode title: “Heart Throbbing for Elementary School Kids!” That title probably says everything you need to know.

In Another World with my Smartphone (on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 9:00 am EDT)

I gave up on this one super quickly. I just don’t care about another dude dying and going to a fantasy world and suddenly getting a harem. I just don’t.

New Game!! (on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 10:00 am EDT)

Sequel to New Game!, which I never finished. It was a cute show about women making games though. Maybe I should try to watch more of it sometime. ANN has a review of the first episode of this.

The Irresponsible Galaxy Tylor (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 12:30 pm EDT)

(short-form, 3 minutes) I guess this is related to The Irresponsible Captain Tylor? I never watched that either. I watched this, but didn’t really pay much attention. I guess if you watched the original thing check this out???

Magical Circle Guru Guru (on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 2:05 pm EDT)

So apparently there was an older version of this that aired in 1994, but this is a complete reboot, not a sequel, so you don’t need any familiarity with the original. The sense of humor reminded me a lot of Senyu, with a heavy focus on classic rpg video game elements as well. It’s a very fast paced shouty sort of humor, but it was a fun first episode. It didn’t really do anything I haven’t seen before, so I’m probably dropping it.

Light of the Clione (on Anime Strike, Tuesdays(?) at sometime)

(short-form, 9 minutes) I was interested in this one based on what I read of the premise, but so far it’s been two students feeling sorry for, but not helping, a girl getting bullied. Since it’s a short, it has a much lower bar to clear for me to stick with it, so I probably will. The character designs feel sort of off, though, and the animation isn’t very good.

Ikemen Sengoku: Bromances Across Time (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 10:45 am EDT)

(short-form, 5 minutes) CG short about a dude who gets transported back in time. Based on an otome game, apparently. Otome games need more full length adaptations, they keep on getting these short form series instead. Anyways, this show doesn’t really have anything to recommend it.

Nora, Princess, and Stray Cat (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 11:15 am EDT)

(short-form, 4 minutes) Cute short that has a harem set up, accept someone transformed the boy into a cat, and no one knows how to turn him back. Funny, cute, and short enough for me to keep watching.

My First Girlfriend is a Gal (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 11:30 am EDT)

This show is not good. You should watch Please Tell Me! Galko-chan instead. Seriously, the most interesting part of this show is the bedazzled censorship objects. I bailed out about five minutes in, because I couldn’t stand the main character and his friends. There is nothing to recommend this show. Even if you want weird censorship items, you can watch Seven Mortal Sins instead.

Classroom of the Elite (on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 12:00 pm EDT)

I was expecting to quit out of this show partway through, since it really didn’t look at all interesting to me. I also hated the first five minutes or so. But I actually really liked the rapport between the two main characters, probably because it reminds me of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. I curious to see where the main plot heads as well. I think it’s worth getting through the opening to see what the show has to offer, because it definitely got better after that.

GAMERS! (on Crunchyroll, Thursdays at 11:30 am EDT)

This is another show I was expected to not make it all he way through, but instead I really liked it. It’s about a high school gaming club, and the super popular girl trying to recruit the main character to join. I think what really worked for me was how relatable the main character felt at times. He’s a “casual” gamer, and feels really intimidated by how intense the club members are. I really understand that feeling. I’m looking forward to more of this show.

And that’s it! I’ll probably wait to write about Hell Girl and The Reflection until after both of them air, at which point I’ll also have a better idea of what shows I’m actually going to keep.