Lurker > Robazoid

https://archipelago.gg/room/Py729FldSMyIK2p9J3NtzA

There it is, have fun everyone! Remember it'll go dormant after six hours of inactivity so refresh that page if you're playing at odd hours.

You never know what might get an anime! Netflix recently released two shows based off manga from the 80s (Spriggan and Bastard Heavy Metal or whatever). Spirit Circle might get adapted in 2050

I watched first episodes of two more shows

The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting wasn't bad, but it has a long way to go to stand up to other shows like it (I'd classify it alongside Uzamaid or Wataten, where someone who probably shouldn't be near children is looking after one). Yakuza felt too wholesome right from the start, why even make him a Yakuza if he's going to be such a good dude. None of the comedy really landed for me either but, eh, I'll stick with it.

Prima Doll, meanwhile, was really good. I'm loving the worldbuilding they're doing with the automations and flashbacks to the war. Main robot girl was cute, and it already had one heartfelt plot. I always love it when slice-of-life has a twist in the premise that grants it depth, and former robot soldiers trying to find a purpose in peacetime is great. This is really close to Lycoris Recoil for my favorite of the season so far.

Summer ranking so far:
Lycoris Recoil
Prima Doll
Phantom of the Idol
The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting
Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Luminous Witches

I did a test generation with all of these and it worked, in case anyone was worried about their yaml.

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- KommunistKoala (Super Metroid) yaml received
3- KommunistKoala (LTTP) default
4- Reg (LTTP) yaml received
5- JeffreyRaze (Hollow Knight) yaml received
6- JeffreyRaze (Meritous) yaml received
7- Aria (LTTP) yaml received
8- FBike1 (Final Fantasy) yaml received
9- MrSmartGuy (Slay the Spire) yaml received
10- MegamanX (OOT) yaml received
11- MegamanX (LTTP) yaml received
12- Mewtwo59 (OOT) yaml received
13- MZero (Hollow Knight) default
14- PickleBoar (Hollow Knight) yaml received
15- Lolo_Guru (OOT) yaml received
16- HBJDubs (Timespinner) yaml received

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- KommunistKoala (Super Metroid) yaml received
3- KommunistKoala (LTTP) default
4- Reg (LTTP) yaml received
5- JeffreyRaze (Hollow Knight) yaml received
6- JeffreyRaze (Meritous) yaml received
7- Aria (LTTP) yaml received
-----
8- MegamanX (OOT) awaiting yaml
9- Mewtwo59 (OOT) awaiting yaml
10- FBike1 (Final Fantasy) let me know about setting changes or if default is good
11- MZero (Hollow Knight) let me know about settings
12- Lolo Nephew (Hollow Knight) awaiting yaml

I rewatched the first season of Classroom of the Elite. This was never my favorite anime, but I really like the premise of classes competing for points and each class having all these strong personalities doing political intrigue stuff to get ahead. Ayanokoji is a great character too, he's a neat twist on the OP protagonist. I just wish CotE took itself a bit more seriously, I guess. The episode about preventing classmates from putting cameras in the girls locker room is just ugh. The whole stolen panties subplot in the middle of an otherwise neat arc was awful.

I rewatched this so I could start S2, but seeing this again actually convinced me to wait until S2 is over and then binge it all at once. Individual episodes weren't all that satisfying, I want to see the big plays come together all at once.

DoomTheGyarados posted...

8/10 somehow. I almost said 7 but honestly it is just... really enjoyable

Yeah, Birdie Wing was just such a consistently entertaining anime. I kept raising its score myself just from how enjoyable it was week-to-week. Really looking forward to S2

DoomTheGyarados posted...

Purple Bullet episode of girl golf is peak sports anime lmao

Hell yeah, it was so good

Terra

Watched the first episode of Luminous Witches. I'm curious to see which wins out, my love of idol anime or my dislike of the Strike Witches universe. It's just such a boring setting and I can't believe it now has two spinoffs. It's a ripoff of World War II but the Germans have been replaced with aliens so they can have German stereotype characters without offending anyone and so that the Japanese aren't on the side of evil. I'll never understand why so many alternate universe/alternate history stories seem to go out of their way to parallel real world history. It's an alien invasion, you can do literally anything, but sure let's open Luminous Witches with an exact replica of Dunkirk. The Neuroi suck too, they have zero personality and are just shapeshifting blobs that explode if they get shot in the right place.

Luminous Witches is about magical idols helping morale from behind the front lines, though, so I'm really hoping this episode is the last we see of the actual war effort. Please just be about wartime idols from now on.

Summer ranking so far:
Lycoris Recoil
Phantom of the Idol
Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Luminous Witches

That yaml also included a VVVVVV didn't it? Should I edit it and delete that section?

Nora

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- KommunistKoala (Super Metroid) yaml received
-----
3- MegamanX (OOT) awaiting yaml
4- Mewtwo59 (OOT) awaiting yaml
5- FBike1 (Final Fantasy) let me know about setting changes or if default is good

Noctis

Trading for Nora auto, I can save now

Terra

I watched the first episode of two more shows.

Lycoris Recoil: I'm going to be shocked if this doesn't wind up being my favorite anime of the season. When I briefly talked about Summer shows last week, this wasn't even one of the ones that interested me. The MAL description made it sound like Pastel Memories where girls work in a cafe but sometimes they fight random shit and isn't that crazy lol. Turns out, the MAL description didn't do it justice. I don't even want to talk about this too much yet but it was amazing and I hope everyone gives it a shot.

Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing 'til you Cry: The only anime with more exclamation marks than Keijo!!!!!!!!. I don't know a whole lot about the manzai style of humor, and humor is often difficult to translate anyway. It didn't make me laugh until I cried like the title suggested, but it was fine. Cute girls doing anything is usually inoffensive at worst. This seems like it'll focus on a different group every episode, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of the alien girls. They were my favorite.

Summer ranking so far:
Lycoris Recoil
Phantom of the Idol
Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nora

Finished In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki. I thought this was pretty good! There are something like 30+ different girl ninjas, so most of them only appear in one episode and only have one gimmick. I think that's fine, though. The premise of ninja training lent itself to a lot of great gags using those gimmicks. Also, despite Tsubaki's main gimmick being her interest in men, it never got creepy or anything. It all felt like fairly innocent coming-of-age stuff. It was a fun anime.

I may as well talk about Komi Can't Communicate S2 now, even though I still have two episodes in it because lol Netflix delay. It'll be my last show from Spring and I want to get that all done now before Summer truly starts. My main complaint from the first season was that the side characters all sucked, most of their gimmicks were directly dependent on Komi (the yandere for Komi, the girl who wants to be a dog for Komi...). This season improved on that by introducing a lot of funny characters who aren't dependent on Komi at all. I liked the two normal-ish girls from the school trip. I like the shy delinquent looking guy. I like the narcissistic guy. Plus it's focusing on the fun characters from the first season (the chuni, the big sister, the airhead) rather than the lame ones like the yandere or the dog. There have been a lot of sweet moments between Komi and Tadano, too. I'm liking S2 a lot more than the first!

Definitive Spring Ranking:
Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
Ya Boy Kongming
The Demon Girl Next Door S2
In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki
Love After World Domination
Komi Can't Communicate S2
Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness
RPG Real Estate
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai
Healer Girl
Love Live: Nijigasaki High School Idol Club S2
Spy x Family
Ascendance of a Bookworm S3
Heroines Run the Show

Cyan

Oh, I also wanted to mention that they fixed Hollow Knight, you can quit the game and reload it with no problems now. Just in case that glitch was holding anyone back

We're one week away from our next async on July 9th! Start either letting me know about settings or sending me yamls. To prevent what happened last time, I'm now asking that anyone who joins be able to start playing on either Saturday or Sunday. You don't have to play a lot, and obviously if something comes up you can let us know, but I don't want another instance of someone joining and then never checking in again. If we don't hear from someone and they don't get any items by Monday, we'll either let someone else grab it or forfeit it if no one else wants it.

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)

I rewatched the two seasons of Kakegurui. An anime of the Kakegurui Twin spinoff is coming out in August so I figured I should watch it again.

My opinions haven't changed much on rewatch. First season was still excellent, the second season had its moments but also some lame games that dragged it down. The last two gambles in the second season in particular both felt like huge wastes of time. I still love Jabami Yumeko, she's always a fun character and it's thrilling to watch her approach the games. Hopefully there will be a third season someday that continues her story.

Ashe

Trading for Nora auto, I can save now

Terra

Nora

Cyan

Summer season has begun! I think only two are starting today and I have zero interest in Rent-a-Girlfriend S2 but it's available now if anyone else is.

As for me, I watched the first episode of Phantom of the Idol on HiDIVE. I don't think this will appeal to anyone other than me. The not-great CGI during shows will probably turn off a lot of people. I enjoyed it though. Ghost idol girl is fun, the lazy boy idol is fun, and it didn't have any 'lol isn't it funny a girl is in the body of a boy' humor, which was the only thing I was worried about. It won't be a super amazing anime or anything, but I'm ready for the story of a ghost fulfilling her dream by helping an incredibly lazy dude be an idol.

No

Finished The Demon Girl Next Door season two. I enjoyed it even more than the first! The two main characters always had a fun dynamic, but too much of the first season was just Shamiko challenging Momo to things and getting tricked over and over. This season kept finding fresh ways for everyone to interact, and scenarios with different combinations of Lilith, Mikan, Ogura, Ryo, and so on were always fun. I liked the new characters they brought in too, and the greater focus on Shamiko's powers.

Season ranking so far:
Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
Ya Boy Kongming
The Demon Girl Next Door S2
Love After World Domination
Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness
RPG Real Estate
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai
Healer Girl
Love Live: Nijigasaki High School Idol Club S2
Spy x Family
Ascendance of a Bookworm S3
Heroines Run the Show

Today I rewatched Angel Beats. It still managed to get to me. Some character backstories are way too over-the-top (Yuri's especially) but for the most part I think this anime manages a perfect balance between comedy and drama. My favorite running gag is the sappy song that plays for a few seconds when characters get seriously injured. It's a great parody of epic sacrifices because here they're immortal so they're fine. I like all the characters, and of course the ending really delivers. I'm glad this held up to a rewatch, it's still one of my favorites.

SockoressKnight posted...

I kinda wanna pick up Birdie Wing again, but I really didn't like the mafia stuff, and it looks like it is coming back next season

But the mafia had a shapeshifting underground golf course and a snake woman with disorienting pheromones and a lady with a prosthetic arm that exploded when she made a shot too hard and they blew up a politician's car with a bazooka and... I liked the mafia parts of Birdie Wing lol

On another note, Birdie Wing inspired me to rewatch Scorching Ping Pong Girls last night. They aren't all that similar other than a few tropes related to sports anime, but it was the closest thing I could think of. SPPG was still pretty good. I like Koyori a lot for always feeling the doki doki when she plays, and it goes all-out with magical ping pong skills. The problem I have with it, and one I'm glad Birdie Wing avoided, is that SPPG only has one season. It's still introducing rival characters in the last few episodes, and the final episode ends with a montage of all the interesting teams I never got to see. It's a good anime but depressing that it never really went anywhere.

Move over Executioner, Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story is my anime of the season.

I remember putting this at the bottom of my lists earlier in the season. It was good early on, I just had no faith that it would go anywhere. Birdie Wing kept on reaching new heights, though. I thought some of the mafia golf craziness would be the high point but it just got better and better no matter what it was doing. Eve and Aoi are both fun characters and their dynamic is the best. Anime insanity has improved many other sports with special moves and unreasonable abilities, and that kind of stuff translates to golf well. It's stereotyped as the most boring sport, but I've seen videos where pros skip the ball across a lake onto a hill where it then rolls just perfectly for a hole-in-one. Golf lends itself well to insane feats of skill, and fiction can cut out all the fluff and only show those exciting shots. Add magical named abilities onto that, plus the mafia for some reason, and you get Birdie Wing. It's great, and I can't wait for season two.

I rewatched Anne-Happy today. It was still really good! The five main characters all have terrible luck in different ways, which means they all have a solid gimmick for gags. Hanako with her positive attitude despite her all-around bad luck is my favorite, but I'd forgotten how funny Botan was with her poor health. There were so many solid moments of her falling apart over the tiniest things. It did a lot of the usual cute girls doing cute things staples, like going to a beach, going to a hot spring, going to a festival, etc, but it always added a fun bad luck twist to make it fresh. CGDCT is one of my favorite types of anime, and Anne-Happy remains one of my favorites in the genre!

Over the weekend I caught up on Ascendance of a Bookworm, which meant finishing the second and third seasons. It's definitely one of the better isekai I've seen, but that still only made it a fairly average anime. I liked how Main slowly introduced new technologies. Watching her 'invent' stuff was the best part of the show, as was the merchant aspect. That said, her book obsession became increasingly at odds with the plots that began happening around her. It was so important early on but by the end you could've cut the whole book aspect and it wouldn't change anything. And the bad guys were all stupid evil, anytime the show got serious it became worse because they were all cackling cardboard cutouts. I didn't care for certain aspects of the setting either, the church especially felt really poorly thought out for a supposedly important institution. Regular people literally knew nothing about it and didn't care at all. In our world's Medieval times, religion was a pillar in most people's lives. Their whole mana shortage was dumb too because there's an obvious way to fix their problems and they aren't doing it for some reason.

I'd rank the third season below Spy x Family but ahead of Heroines Run the Show on my Spring 2022 ranking in post 468. Bookworm was fine but nothing special.

Snow White with the Red Hair is easily my favorite romance. Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions has romance but is mostly comedy. Iroduku: The World in Colors is a bit lighter on romance and comedy but it has a bit of both and definitely made me feel emotions. As was already mentioned, My Dress-Up Darling was also great. Those are the first four that come to mind for me.

Two more airing anime completed

Spy x Family was fine. I didn't like it anywhere near as much as the rest of the world, but there wasn't anything wrong with it. Anya is cute, Loid is cool, and Yor is fun. All the side characters were fine. I just feel like it never really focused on anything. Anya needs to do well at school but she seems mostly stuck in a rut. Loid is doing spy stuff but we never see the impact on the political situation. Yor is presumably doing assassinations but they never show that at all. Like, I have absolutely no idea who Yor works for, is she working for the government Loid works for or against him? I dunno. Sometimes Loid's agency has no other spies except for him, sometimes they can summon hundreds at a moments notice. This isn't funny enough to be a purely comedy anime, in my opinion, but so far none of the other elements have risen to fill the gap. I'll definitely keep watching it, but I hope it evolves into something more at some point.

Love Live Nijigasaki S2 was also fine. I liked this season more than the first because there was no dumb drama like in S1. It felt like it'd go that direction early on but thankfully it never did. The new characters they added were all good too, Lanzhu's songs in particular are great. This is still by far my least favorite Love Live, though. They did a lot more group stuff this season, but I still never felt like the Nijigasaki girls came together as well as 's or Aqours did. It also never felt like they had a concrete goal, both the original Love Live and Sunshine had something they were aiming for the entire time. Nijigasaki was more episodic with characters having personal goals. It was still a fun anime though.

Season ranking so far:
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
Ya Boy Kongming
Love After World Domination
Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness
RPG Real Estate
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai
Healer Girl
Love Live: Nijigasaki High School Idol Club S2
Spy x Family
Heroines Run the Show

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Two seasons of Kingdom are in the Top 30 for God's sake.

9 of the top 50 are Gintama and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone talk about that anywhere

I rewatched the first season of Made in Abyss and then watched the movie, Dawn of the Deep Soul, for the first time. I really love this series. The Abyss itself is endlessly interesting. I don't know if the author has answers to all the little details in there or if they're just thrown in for flavor, but I often find myself hypothesizing about the smallest things. Like, what's the deal with all the praying skeletons? Why is this wooden ship fused with a wall? You really get the sense that this place has thousands of years of history, and that most of it is unknowable. I also love all the different effects and rules there are the deeper they go.

My only complaint about the series is that I feel like things get a little too grim at times, but that's just my personal preference for lighter stories. A dark tone certainly fits the setting well. I'm excited to see where the upcoming third season goes.

Strife2 posted...

So wait...you hated they brought it up, or did the show highlight it just to go LOL NOT A BIG DEAL, LET'S DANCE

I would love an idol show that treated toxic idol culture as a serious problem. This one did the latter

I finished Heroines Run the Show. 80% of it was really good, I liked Hiyori a lot, and the dynamic between her and the surly idols was fun. Unfortunately, the last few episodes ruined this anime by wholeheartedly embracing the most toxic aspects of idol culture. It's an industry known for this junk, where idols are stalked and harassed and have their careers ruined for the tiniest things. I don't rag on something like Love Live for not dealing with it because they don't bring it up. Heroines Run the Show did bring those things up, and all it had to say on the matter is 'that's fine, because passionate fans are what matter most'. I understand why they did that, the people who made this have a whole stable of idol properties and you don't get money from crazy fans by attacking the crazy fans. I'm not a crazy fan, though, so I found the end of this anime sickening. It'd be like a story where an abused wife goes back to her alcoholic husband or something. Realistic? Sure, that happens all the time in real life. But fiction doesn't need to glorify it.

Slot this one in at the absolute bottom of my Spring list. Like, Healer Girl was a 6/10, this is a 2/10

I also finished two more airing anime

Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness was a super solid slice-of-life. Nagomu was just such a good dude, and Itsuka's situation with her father provided a good emotional crux without ever getting overly dramatic. Every side character got their time to shine, but my favorite was Kanoko. It used the whole sweet shop angle pretty well too, treats like that always have a relaxing aura. This was a nice, chill anime to watch every week.

RPG Real Estate was also pretty good. I liked how selling houses organically introduced various characters and always resulted in unique situations without ever feeling forced. It did that thing a lot of comedy anime do where it had a super dramatic arc near the end. Usually those outright ruin an anime for me, but RPG Real Estate handled it surprisingly deftly. Fa was my favorite character in this by far, she was always cute and funny, but I liked pretty much everyone, even one-off characters like the bard who couldn't sing well or the hot spring cats.

Season ranking so far:
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
Ya Boy Kongming
Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness
RPG Real Estate
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai
Healer Girl

I watched Adachi and Shimamura today. I wonder if I'll ever find a good yuri romance because the few I've seen have been absolute duds. I'm going to rant for a bit, don't mind me.

This started kind of charming. I liked it really early on when it was Shimamura's perspective and you got to see Adachi's crush growing from the outside. Then they never progressed beyond that. They actually moved backwards a couple of times instead, it was so annoying. This anime would be great if all you want is the awkward blushing stage of a pre-relationship. I find that charming for a week or two and then it gets excruciating as months turn to years. I'm not sure if Shimamura is the most obtuse person in the universe for her to never realize what was going on, or if she's just the most boring person ever and her realizing something would ruin that by making her slightly interesting. Adachi was barely better, her entire personality was 'likes Shimamura'. Adachi's mental state crumbled if Shimamura so much as stood next to someone else, because she kept worrying that Shimamura looked as happy with that person as she was with Adachi. And you know what? Despite all the times Shimamura's thoughts told me 'this isn't the same as when I'm with Adachi', it was exactly the fucking same as when she was with Adachi. Shimamura was the same no matter who she was with, she was always confused or bored or apathetic. And don't even get me started on the random-ass alien, literally an alien, which ate up a bunch of screen time but symbolized nothing.

All I want out of a yuri romance is some romance, is that too much to ask? Keep the awkward beginning, it's charming and realistic for them to wonder about each other and probe for mutual interest. Then move past it. Have a romance. Don't just waste my time with twelve episodes of nothing. I keep looking for an anime that makes me feel like the visual novel Highway Blossoms made me feel but I'm starting to doubt I'll ever find it.

At least this was better than Citrus.

I need to catch up on My Hero Academia, I haven't watched seasons 4 and 5. I'll have to make sure to do that before S6 starts airing in the fall

I finished Healer Girl. It was good, but it could've been a lot better if it leaned into the musical aspect more. The best episodes were the ones where they sang at random points during day-to-day stuff, like one of those musical episodes that sitcoms sometimes have where they randomly break into song. In HG, most of the songs were only during the healer segments. They were fine there, but at that point it just became a typical music anime rather than a musical anime, if that makes sense. Like, the only difference between this and an idol anime was that they sang during procedures instead of at a live. Still, it was a nice lighthearted show, and I don't have anything to complain about really. A solidly average anime

Season ranking so far:
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
Ya Boy Kongming
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai
Healer Girl

I hope I'm not annoying anyone by posting too much. A bunch of airing shows are ending over the next two weeks and I'm rewatching old stuff on top of that.

I rewatched Planet With today, yet another one I remembered liking but didn't have the strongest memories of. I'd forgotten how impressive the writing in that anime is. It covered so much ground in twelve episodes without ever feeling rushed. There were like four points that were epic enough to be season finales but it just kept going to new heights. Soya was a unique protagonist, fighting against what would be the heroes in a typical mecha story. I liked Nozomi a lot too, but really all the side characters filled their roles well. I'm glad I rewatched this one.

I finished rewatching Urara Mierochou. It's a slice-of-life about four girls training as fortune-tellers in a fantastical town. I actually started watching it way back when I first got my Hidive subscription just to see how their website worked (I first watched it less than legally years ago). It took me a long time to get through it because Urara Mierochou isn't a super favorite of mine, and rewatching didn't change that. Like, it was fine, but nothing special. The characters are mostly the standard slice-of-life girl archetypes, just with fortune-teller twists. I still enjoyed the way that their training led to interesting situations, though. The one girl with the haunted doll was my favorite, I'm a sucker for haunted dolls. The haunted doll was the best part of Konohina Kitan too, which I'd put on roughly the same level as Urara. Anyway it was a nice show, just not good enough to be worth rewatching I guess.

No rounds for ten days now, I hope everyone enjoys their break. SMFFFC distracts me at work so I won't enjoy it

I don't want one