Anime, Manga, VN, JRPG, Related Things Discussion Topic CII

I need to finish the extra content in SMRPG. I beat Belome but haven't gotten to anyone else. And this time around I'm determined to get 100 Super Jumps; my record is around 60.

Also I must have missed the news, but I recently went to a bookstore and nearly yelped when I saw Nana & Kaoru. I'm very tempted to buy everything that's out right now. I don't buy very much lately but I always try to make sure I support my favorite series.

the new fight in relink is so cool and it's actually legitimately hard (if you're not cheesing it, which everyone is doing early on)

man I wanna go back and reread the 000 event again

I should try the new fight in Relink
I've been playing a lot of FF7 Rebirth and I like it in some ways (the story and combat hold my interest) but the side quests and open world stuff have killed my will a little. I just reached CH10 and up to this point got 100% in all the regions but it's a massive slog of repetitive tasks that's now made me only want to focus on the main story so I can put the game behind me and move on lol

The rewards are frankly not worth the grind (except as an azurite farm) even though it's more damage cap because you lose so much QoL, but the fight itself is so fucking cool

AI's also very competent in the fight if you trait them decently, I've been getting some slow solo kills

Yeah I need to go back and beat it. Really wish it was in the game on launch so I don't have to motivate to get back into the game for one fight.

I made the mistake of asking myself whether or not there are Vtubers on Pornhub. Short answer is apparently yes. Sheesh. Stupid question.

The Legend of Legacy remaster is arriving next week. Might be a good way to break up this run through P3R a bit. (Why am I not playing Rebirth ?)

I_Abibde posted...

I made the mistake of asking myself whether or not there are Vtubers on Pornhub. Short answer is apparently yes. Sheesh. Stupid question.

ProjektMelody is probably the most well-known lewdtuber, though she does a lot of sfw stuff these days too. There's definitely a submarket for outright porn in the vtuber space

Unicorn Overlord is pretty damn nice so far.

Yeah unicorn overlord has been fun. I've only got a tiny bit of albion left and then I can fight the final boss. I will say, for a game with 5 difficulty options, I'd really have expected expert to be a bit harder. That said, the game wouldn't be very fun if it was hard probably so maybe it's for the best. You'd just be encouraged to cheese RNG even more.

33 days to Eiyuden Chronicle.

Now i have beaten unicorn overlord 100% (although technically I can't complete all the quests because you fail a liberation quest near soldraga if you don't do it before soldraga, which is dumb). Once I started getting the good stuff, the game kinda snowballs. I pretty much just had Alain's unit massacre everyone in every level and never take damage and always one round enemies (and this is on expert). Still quite fun and I liked the credits showing what everyone is up to part. I'd say like a 8/10 game, definitely enjoyed my time with it and it ended before it started to feel too tedious which is better than plenty of fire emblems.

Wow. Gushing over magical adaptation is something else. I'm honestly amazed they could legally show that in japan, even if it were hentai. Asahi productions doing god's work. It's been decades but I finally have a solid yuri ecchi show. I really hope it gets a season 2. I wonder how successful it's been so far.

gonna binge it all at once so I haven't started it yet, but they've covered about what I expected, right? up to right before or at the hotel chapter

I can only guess thats Kiwi's reward for fighting in that one battle cause they said they'd go to one but then the next episode it wasn't brought up. Could easily see it being next week though (which is the last episode).

Also anime season finally ending. First show down was ishura of the stuff I'm watching which ended up being not too bad even if it's kind of all over the place. Today instant death isekai and chained soldier ended as well although I haven't watched those yet.

New anime season is going to have to wait, going to rewatch Jujutsu Kaisen and then watch s2, same for Vinland Saga, then I can get to the new stuff.

As for Unicorn Overlord, can someone tell me if this battle was one that I could win or lose and the story would basically be the same. I'm speaking of the battle against Galerius when you go to rescue Scarlett. I got through that battle by the skin of my teeth and almost gave up thinking I was meant to lose it. I'm still not super far into the game, but it's been opening up nicely and I should have quite a bit of stuff I can do now.

There's never a battle you have to lose during gameplay. The scene you mention always goes like that as far as I know and I think someone mentioned on the boards for the game you get a game over if you lose that fight so winning isn't optional.

Well, it's good I squeaked through then.

Exactly one month to Eiyuden Chronicle.

I started Friern to see what the fuss was about. First few episodes were just fine. It got a lot better after Stark was introduced. Interesting theme for the tone.

I think Frieren's first episode is fantastic, but then it does slow down until Sterk joins

Finished up frieren yesterday. What a great anime. It's always fairly slow but that's kinda the point. To just slow down and enjoy the little things in the moment that will you end up treasuring years later after you've parted. Stark is great though, it was definitely nice when he joined.

Also finished up undead adventurer which was a very solid b tier technically not isekai.

Behind on a few things cause of dragon's dogma 2. PC port is ass and it won't load some of the ground textures so I can just see under the map the whole time but it's still pretty fun. It's definitely a bit lacking in challenge though. Was able to 1v2 a drake and a gryphon at level 24 and I feel like that would have been much much harder on DD1. Then again DD1 had hard mode when I played it which I played on and this doesn't so maybe thats the difference.

Just watched all of the episodes of Sand Land, it kinda just ended, with an episode that goes slightly beyond the where the manga finished. Looked it up it will be releasing new episodes weekly.

Its second part, will go into an area called Forest Land, and looks like they will be trying to prevent a war between Sand Land and Forest Land.

Revelation34 posted...

Exactly one month to Eiyuden Chronicle.

Cue Konami setting a release date for the Suikoden remasters in 5, 4, 3 ....

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f0c62d9e.jpg

help

I don't know when next month the best two characters are gonna get added but i am ready

I_Abibde posted...

Cue Konami setting a release date for the Suikoden remasters in 5, 4, 3 ....

Yep.

Finished out a bunch of shows.

Sasaki and Peeps was...ok. I feel like it kind of fell off a bit. Mediocre B tier isekai.

7th loop was decent although it kind of became "I can fix him" the anime. I feel like the conclusion to the last arc of the season was unsatisfactory and the men have that classic shoujo trait of being simultaneously dumb as rocks but also cold, calculating, and meticulous in a way that makes me feel like the author just doesn't have a grasp on how men actually think. Still, it wasn't a bad show and one of the better shoujos of this type.

Although it looks like dogshit compared to the next anime I finished, which is apothecary diaries. Don't think it's remotely a stretch to say it's the best shoujo I've seen and unsurprisingly it has the best lead as well who is believable, intelligent, and capable but also knows her areas of expertise and weaknesses. She also has REAL competence instead of bullshit obviously wrong but the story treats it as correct competence that many shoujo mains have. I feel like it's the validation for all the criticism I've had towards many shoujos because this proves it very much can be done right. It also has a lot more going on than frustrating romantic misunderstandings. I still feel like the author doesn't quite "get" men similar to 7th loop but they are still much better and at least a joy to watch.

Also finished level 99 hidden boss. It ended up being pretty meh and supposedly the ending is anime original and very different from the source. A classic case of a fun gimmick not being enough to hold up an entire 12 episodes. They did develop some of the characters to fill in that gap but just not very well. I will give it some props for actually having a conclusion to the romance and overall handling that element pretty well for a show of it's low quality. Although man, where did the already tiny budget go for this final episode. When they showed scenes of patrick talking against a still background of shouting soliders, with their mouths glued open and unmoving it was hilarious in a bad way. I haven't seen something look that cheap since the tractor scene from that cult isekai a season or two back but this was all 2D animation.

Finished the day with two more series.

Doctor elise was ok. Slightly better than I first expected but nothing special. Minus a point of having to perform an emergency trach like every doctor show ever and for having an anime original last arc that had some pretty absurd leaps in logic. The final episode was fine though.

Classroom of the elite season 3 is still trash that I enjoy. This season felt maybe a bit rushed but it's basically more of the same with a bit more backstory on our main character and the white room.

Having gushing over magical girls last episode that I'll watch tomorrow. I'll be sad to see it go.

Anyone read Emanon?

I saw reference to it in a video recently and it has some striking artwork.

Just finished up gushing over magical girls and I'm sad it's over. That was a peak ecchi show if I've ever seen one. Also pretty damn funny sometimes. The music cut when alice collected the others in the last episode was hilarious as was the face pink magical girl made when she came up to azure at the end and saw her drooling. I heard the source material and BDs sold out so hopefully that means we get a season 2 by the same studio eventually.

Wow, I finished up the last 4 episodes of braven and man people are sleeping on this show. This show is amazing and more people should be watching and talking about it. It's everything I wish gurren lagan was.

This season we had some great hetoreosexual ecchi with chained soldier, some great homosexual ecchi with gushing over magical girls and a great robosexual ecchi with braven. This show is a fever dream and had me sitting on the edge of my seat pumping my fist in the air while also laughing my ass off. The fact that it's such a stupid parody also surprisingly gives it really high stakes cause you actually never know when shit is going to fail and someone is going to die and if they do die you have no idea if thats going to be walked back or not. It's so absurd that it's hard to truly predict. What an experience. I'm definitely overhyping it, but you guys should really consider watching it to at least see if it's for you.

I'm sad to see this season end cause it has had some really great anime.

Finished up wrong way to use healing magic. It was a lot better than I expected. Like the top of B tier isekai. The characters are good, the world is good, and I really like the significant but not insane progress of the main character. Like, by normal isekai standards he's weaker than a lot of people start out, but he still is a little bit OP. They really handled the elements of growth well despite not having any physical indication like a stat screen. The supporting cast is significantly better than average as well, especially rose and the other two summoned heroes.

The ending also left me in such an adventuring mood. I'm starting to really value what mushoku tensei did and this did too which is having basically an entire season take place in one location before moving on to adventuring. The world just feels so much bigger when you've started off with a whole fleshed out season of content in just the one area you start in. The idea that theres way more places out there just as interesting makes me feel excited and thats exactly how I feel at the end of this season. I really hope for a season 2.

I keep saying it but this season just kept overperforming. Every season theres like 15 shows I think have a 10% chance to be great and 90% chance to not be very good and this season had like half of em hit that 10% chance at greatness.

Newest anime find, Lost Exile DVD box set. Clearly an older one, but nice find.

I started Bocchi the Rock. I thought I was too old and boring to enjoy comedies but I guess I just haven't been finding the right ones

Bocchi is great. Especially episode 7 IIRC.

DeltaBladeX posted...

Newest anime find, Lost Exile DVD box set. Clearly an older one, but nice find.

Been ages since I last thought about that show. Another one from the magical time of the start of anime streaming piracy where it was one of many hidden gems you'd occasionally get recommended (along with like, texhnolyze, wolfs rain, lain, boogiepop, RIN nemosyne, yami to boushi (fuck this ending in particular), etc). It's nice that everything is so easily discoverable now but I can't say I don't miss stumbling onto something that felt like a tightly kept secret.

I don't know wtf is going on with the start of this anime season but everything is leaking early. It's also been pretty lackluster so far.

Re:Monster is probably the best of the new shows although that doesn't say all that much. Borderline psychopath possible cannibal gets isekai'd as a goblin and they can evolve by hitting level 100 (which happens pretty quickly) so he starts making his goblin kingdom. He also gets skills from creatures he eats, a skill he apparently used as a human before reincarnating which is a bit gruesome to imagine. The progression in episode 1 was fun to watch and the production quality is fine.

Level 2 cheat hero feels like a fake anime you'd see an ultra weeb character watching in a different anime. Guy gets summoned, stats and skills suck, kingdom is a dick to him and nice to powerful douchebag hero, guy hits level 2, gets infinite stats. It's nothing we haven't seen a million times and it's not done particularly well either. Feels very uninspired.

Unnamed memory is probably pretty decent but not really in my wheelhouse. Fantasy romance about a prince who was cursed to not be able to make babies without killing the woman finds a witch strong enough to resist said curse and tries to romance her. She rejects the idea, he is stubborn, they decide to live together for a while. Romance ensues I'm sure. Production quality is pretty good, the characters aren't bad.

Reincarnated aristocrat is a pretty fun idea for kingdom building isekai twist. Our protag reincarnates as a young heir to a minor lord in tumultuous times with the ability to see anyones talents and capacity for growth in a variety of areas and uses this to try and recruit people to his house to help his people survive the impending era of civil war and chaos. It's done fine but not amazingly. I expect I'll watch this to the end as I enjoyed realist hero despite it not being especially well made either.

Banished former hero is another show that feels like a fake show you'd see in a different show. Hero fights and fights and saves the world despite the people betraying him and asks the goddess to have a peaceful next life. He reincarnates with his same overpowered skills but the system of the time doesn't recognize him and considers him completely weak. His noble family kicks him out for being an embarrassment and he goes on to of course not relax and just be a hero again because of course thats what happens but this time he finds people that don't fear his power and care about him and you could predict everything that will happen 5 seconds into this anime. Production quality is fine.

7th prince is a bit of a frustrating show because unlike the other shows this one actually has some very good production. The training fight scene was actually pretty awesome. Commoner loves magic but it's all about bloodlines so his magic sucks. He reincarnates with a great bloodline and is overpowered right from the get go making the first life and premise entirely pointless and for some reason he looks like a femboy. This probably had the weakest plot of all the shows I watched this season but the best production to the point I'll probably try to keep watching it.

Astro note feels like a early 2000s romcom. I HATE the artstyle but I'm sure some people will like it a lot. It looks very retro with lots of roundness. The comedy is very over the top and I just wasn't vibing with it. Despite hating the artstyle it is produced quite well. Plot is unemployed chef gets mislead into applying for this shared housing breakfast cook position and the shared housing has weird people and a hot girl so he decides to take the job anyway.

Pretty disappointed so far honestly. I mentioned recently how last season was overperforming on it's new shows but this one is the opposite. Granted, the sequels will ensure it's still a good season with konosuba and mushoku tensei. There's still some promising shows that haven't aired yet like windbreaker so all hope is not lost yet for the new shows but definitely off to a bad start.

I also did something I rarely do which is read. I read SSS class suicide hero. It was pretty good although I'm not really a fan of the last arc. The whole thing has really made me think more about manwha. I've read this, solo leveling, about 250 chapters of tower of god, and about 60 chapters of omniscient readers viewpoint which all share similar elements. It's crazy how much influence tower of god clearly has. It's like the dragonball of manwha. The thing is, I don't think the other shows do it nearly as well.

Solo leveling probably handles things second best. It's very coherent and understandable until near the end. Everything is pretty straight forward and outside of the initial double dungeon the power system and skills directly determine success because everything is combat. I think this is the main reason it's so successful when the others haven't hit that level yet. It's just much easier to understand.

ORV (omniscient readers viewpoint) and suicide hunter have a lot of shared elements including constellations which I guess has reached the point of being an understood term that doesn't need explaining in the narrative anymore. Constellations are gods or godlike beings that view various games or trials that happen to various worlds. While they usually can't incarnate directly they can bestow blessings to apostles.

I do not like constellations from a story telling point of view. It makes everything much less cohesive and is just an infinite dues ex machina system. Additionally, their power is so overwhelming that it renders the powerscale of the characters irrelevant and harder to understand. It just makes everything feel so random.

Tower of god has all these same elements. It's got a base power system, equipment with skills, abilities, and something very similar to constellations as well but it introduces these elements MUCH slower. We don't even find out about the power system for the entire first 80 chapter long arc very similar to hunter x hunter and nen. There have been many social systems built around the power systems as well. Each stage of tower of god is just about as random as ORV or suicide hunter but it's all introduced at a pacing where you can get to grips with everything. We also see much more frequent power level checks of the various characters. The implications of the tower and it's purpose is shrouded in much more mystery and takes WAY longer to start unraveling and I think that is the secret sauce here that makes it far better than the others.

I will praise suicide hunter for using it's skills pretty cleverly. It's got a good balance between smart and something I think they could have reasonably come up with (something that ORV fails at IMO). Also kinda badass when you compare it to suburu from re:zero. "Oh it hurts to die, it's so scary". Meanwhile suicide hunter is like "hm, I need to go back in time 11 years and my power takes me back 24 hours when I die. Time to suicide 4000 times in a row". It's still somewhat vexing that as of the end of season 3 he's used combat power to win exactly 1 time. Makes all the aura and skills feel kind of pointless when each floor is closer to a puzzle game than a combat challenge.

....

I have no idea what is airing this season. Need to go have a look.

I will see that my enjoyment of trash isekai is starting to wane because I have been reading a lot of trash gamelit / haremlit on Kindle Unlimited instead, since that (1) does the same stuff, but (2) makes the characters all of legal age, and (3) adds sex. So watching anime in the genre feels like things are missing.

Haven't started on the season that just ended yet, still on Jujutsu Kaisen s2, then I can get to it. Probably do Frieren first.

I've heard nothing but good about Bocchi; I'm sure I'd enjoy it but I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I also just found out that there's a new Bartender anime, which blew my skull wide open. I'm a huge fan of the original anime and the manga; I bought the bluray release and have been hoping for an English release of the manga.

Windbreaker is a bit lighter hearted than I was hoping. I want a legit delinquent anime with like crime and violence and some realism, but not a shitty main character. This one at least doesn't have a pathetic main character (or literally THE WORST MC like bucchigiri) and the action is pretty nice but if the starting line is already 1 guy taking out 25+ armed dudes, where do you really go from there? Not to mention it's clearly a positive upbeat story about acceptance and found family kinda vibe. Will keep watching it for now but if the fights drop off I could see my interest waning as well.

keyblader1985 posted...

I've heard nothing but good about Bocchi; I'm sure I'd enjoy it but I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I also just found out that there's a new Bartender anime, which blew my skull wide open. I'm a huge fan of the original anime and the manga; I bought the bluray release and have been hoping for an English release of the manga.

My mind was blown that a sequel came out. I'm not complaining but like, why? The original was great but I don't think it was very popular and it's episodic so it's not like it needed another season to wrap up the story. Oh well, I'll take it.

I_Abibde posted...

I have no idea what is airing this season. Need to go have a look.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/season

konosuba, kimetsu no yaiba, mushoku tensei, MHA, and slime isekai seem to be the most prolific ones

there's an absolute load of trashy isekai/reincarnation tho which is straight up my boat. 7th prince, re:monster, level 2 isekai (probably the second longest LN i've read), appraisal aristocrat (the rare Romance of the Three Kingdoms game system style isekai), banished hero, the new gate (also one of the longest LN's i've read), plus the aforementioned mushoku tensei and slime (and sure konosuba but that's in a respectable category)

I like re:monster a lot once it gets going and it's focusing on his power progression, but the first bits are really questionable. the new gate is one of my favorite takes on game->reality isekai; it kind of feels like a reskinned black summoner with a less sociopathic main character (also girls cute)

YoukaiSlayer posted...

Windbreaker is a bit lighter hearted than I was hoping. I want a legit delinquent anime with like crime and violence and some realism, but not a shitty main character. This one at least doesn't have a pathetic main character (or literally THE WORST MC like bucchigiri) and the action is pretty nice but if the starting line is already 1 guy taking out 25+ armed dudes, where do you really go from there? Not to mention it's clearly a positive upbeat story about acceptance and found family kinda vibe. Will keep watching it for now but if the fights drop off I could see my interest waning as well.

My mind was blown that a sequel came out. I'm not complaining but like, why? The original was great but I don't think it was very popular and it's episodic so it's not like it needed another season to wrap up the story. Oh well, I'll take it.

Well the old anime was very different from the manga. For one thing they were never gonna get 160 chapters into one season, so a lot was cut. They left out anything involving the bartenders' lives and careers (which is actually a very big part of the manga), and the customers' stories became modified or even composites of stories in the original.

I love and appreciate both series, but it will be nice to see Sasakura with an actual personality this time around, instead of just the suave knowledgeable guy he is in the anime (he has that going on in the manga too, but he does show his real personality a lot).

agesboy posted...

konosuba, kimetsu no yaiba, mushoku tensei, MHA, and slime isekai

Banger of a line up, especially for someone like me that loves isekai.

is the mha manga even close to ending yet

The manga has enough for two more seasons and still isn't finished (but we are in the final battle). For a while now it's kind of had this weird feeling like it's both being rushed and not really getting much done.

Seem to be running into a mildly annoying problem in Unicorn. Not enough units to station at each town. Afaik, we're capped to having 64 units and I've already got like 5 towns I can't station anyone at. I haven't hit max units yet, but there seems to be no way that I'm going to have enough units to station one at every town/city. I'm guessing I'm meant to move some around so that I've enough for whatever area I'm currently in.

dragon504 posted...

Seem to be running into a mildly annoying problem in Unicorn. Not enough units to station at each town. Afaik, we're capped to having 64 units and I've already got like 5 towns I can't station anyone at. I haven't hit max units yet, but there seems to be no way that I'm going to have enough units to station one at every town/city. I'm guessing I'm meant to move some around so that I've enough for whatever area I'm currently in.

The cap is only for non unique units. You need to hire IIRC 57 mercs and recruit all uniques to have each town so you can afford to miss 7 or so uniques and still have em all.

Omg, that's so much better. I've mostly avoided hiring mercs since I didn't want to waste space on them instead of the story characters.

I think I read there are up to 70 story characters, so with the generics, you can have up to 134 characters?

Something like that. I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head. I can confirm though that you can station guards at every single town as I did so myself. It's kind of annoying to have spend honor on hiring mercs though since after the start of the game it's always needed elsewhere with promotions and expansions. Well, needed is a strong word. After the half way point or so I pretty much only had 3 units I used and later on it was narrowed down to just one and a few units to cast support valor spells on it at the start of battle.